Biggest Election Story Yet To Come? Death To Death Penalty 09.26.24

In episode 1749, Jack and Miles are joined by author of I'm Starting To Worry About This Black Box of Doom and co-host of Bigfeets, Jason Pargin, to discuss… Trump’s First Assassination Attempt A Carnival of Errors, Death Penalty Used To Be A Thing The Democrats Were Against..., James Cameron Joins AI Company’s Board Of Directors... Inspires Countless Terminator Memes and more!

1. Harris won't say whether she still wants to end death penalty
2. Race and the Death Penalty
3. Marcellus Williams executed in Missouri amid strong innocence claims: 'It is murder'
4. James Cameron Joins AI Company’s Board Of Directors... Inspires Countless Terminator Memes
5. Artists Land a Win in Class Action Lawsuit Against A.I. Companies
6. Stability AI’s Emad Mostaque is out following an investor mutiny and staff exodus that left the one-time tech darling in turmoil
7. AI startup Stability lays off 10% of staff after controversial CEO’s exit: Read the full memo
8. AI’s Trust Problem

LISTEN: Nothing But Jazz Loops by Pigeon Dust

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
My kids said a Alexa alert yesterday, Like right when
we were about to start recording, I suddenly hear the
Alexa full blast in the kitchen, just being like alert reminder,
you are getting a dog. You are getting a dog.
They're trying to like trick me into thinking I had

(00:25):
set an alert to just some subtle gaslighting. Yeah, yeah, dad,
was what I was like, impressed? Did they just watch
Inception right? Alert? You are getting a dog right now?

(00:46):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three point fifty seven,
episode four of der Day's I Stay production of iHeartRadio.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
into America's share consciousness. And it is Thursday, September twenty sixth,
twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Mm hmm, what's going on, Miles hey man. It's National
Compliance Officer Day. It's National Situational Awareness Day. It's National
dump It's National dumpling.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Day, It's National pancake Day, it's National Shamboo the Whale Day,
and also National Johnny apple Seed Day. Johnny apple Seed.
We had to sing that every day before lunch and
my Lutheran school, you had what we had to sing
Johnny apple Seed. There was a Johnny apple seed Christian
song that we would have to sing before we would

(01:35):
go like to the cafeteria for lunch. It was really stupid.
It was like always like this grace song that we say,
make sure.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
That you were thanking Jesus for your apples.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
No, it was about the about the Lord is good
to me, and so I thank the Lord for giving
me the things I need, the sun and the rain.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Of the apple seed. The Lord is far to me.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Omen I'm in amen. Let's see Taco Bell.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Oh man, did you have to Taco Bell?

Speaker 3 (01:58):
We got it acasionally, but yeah, that was like when
like somebing went down with the cafeteria, like look, yo,
we got Wiener Schnitzel and Taco Bell.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
So you know, my seventh grade cafeteria had the bean
burritos and they were consistently yeah yeah, like pretty regularly.
They also had icys. It was like it was in
that moment where like nobody knew what nutrition was.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and they're like yeah, kids
like it, yeah yeah, they like frozen sugar.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah. Dayton, Ohio. Shout out to Centerville Public Schools because
they were they were serving us Taco Bell burritos and
then Lexington Public School District in Kentucky. We had Chick
fil At so wow, had them all? You've had them all.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
All right, Ryan and Jack O'Brien AKA Band Joe Eric
Gary Slime Band Joe Eric, Gary Slime. Banjo Eric had
a dog bam ba lamb. But Gary's sitting on a
log bam b lamb. But whoa that one?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Courtesy of Halsion Salamo Discord Forring two Hour Too New
acronym alter egos acronym Banjo Eric Miles, Gary Slime. I
feel like that's accurate that they would be. I I
added the last part that Banjo Eric would be walking

(03:16):
around with a dog and Gary Slime will be sitting
on a lug. They're like kind of you know, they
look they those names are giving ride the rails a
little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. But yeah,
I don't know, I could get behind this, Like I
feel like that's a a proud tradition unlike any others
in fiction. Is like people having acronym names. Doesn't that

(03:41):
happen in like one of the Harry Potter books that
I think like he's like going by a different alter
ego name or like a ka and then like when
you unscramble the letters, it's like, wait a second, it's
that guy the whole time, it's the bad guy hints
it was and Joe Eric all along the hints. Yeah.

(04:06):
I do love that tweet where people are like, all right,
we're ready to do nine to eleven tomorrow, but one
last thing, the hints the handles. Yes, anyways. The anagram's
courtesy of Moniche The Black Betty Ramble am aka courtesy
of Halsey on Salad, and I'm thrilled to be joined
as always by my co host, mister Miles Grass.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
It's Miles Gray aka Exit thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Shut the fuck up. Old they eating pets now, Shut
the fuck up. Immigrits on the move, Shut the fuck up.
You think we're pitches on stools? Shut the fuck up.
Want to keep dog whistling? Shut the fuck up, WANTA
cabinet position? Shut the fuck up. Soon as I'm VP,
Shut the fuck up.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
The black bags are free, Shut the fuck up.

Speaker 5 (04:50):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Shout out to halcyon Salad for referencing a very fantastic
Jada Kiss track Knock Yourself Out, produced by the Neptunes.
For those who don't know, you know, and for the
that do, shout out to you. Uh yeah, wonderful Helion
Salad doing the exact today backing track, Halseon Salad with
the EXACTA box. I think I had to do the
backing track or else I had to give people the reference.

(05:13):
Otherwise it would just been like a lot of screaming and.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Shut the fuck up. I wait, why is Miles so
mad at me? And why is he whispering to himself? Miles.
We are thrilled to be joined in our third seat
today by the best selling author of books like John
Dies at the End, Zoe Punches, The Future, and The
Dick and the new stand alone. I'm starting to worry
about this black box of doom available now that shit

(05:36):
just dropped yesterday Fresh. It's also one of the hosts
of the podcast Big Feats, which, if I'm reading this
New Yorker profile correctly, is the only Mountain Monsters podcast
officially endorsed by Big Feet. He's my former co worker
at Cracked and co creator of the Crack podcast. Welcome
back to the show. It's Terras and.

Speaker 5 (05:56):
Pardon and congratulations again on getting renewed for season three
hundred and fifty seven. I saw the headline in Variety. Yeah,
immediately texted Jack and he was like, who is this?

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Please?

Speaker 5 (06:12):
You don't text each other if you like that.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
We only talk as contact. Jason.

Speaker 5 (06:17):
Yes, say it for the podcast. I'm not doing this
for free. You're not just I'm not just giving this out.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
I'm doing this for free.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Thank you for the freak, Thank you for the kind words. Yeah,
it's a it's every week. It's we're we're on a
knife's edge every Friday.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Three fifty seven. Know got our ship the Simpsons. That's
the phrase eat our Yeah, eat eat my ship, Bart Simpson. Jason,
how are you doing? I imagine, especially because you told

(06:51):
me right before we started recording that the day the
day is leading up to and immediately after a book
launch pretty exhausting.

Speaker 5 (07:00):
Yeah, because you've got to do a lot of the
publicity stuff yourself, because you know, you can't hire somebody
to do the interviews for you or to do TikTok
videos for you, unless I can find somebody who looks
and sounds exactly like me. But if that guy existed,
I can think of other uses for him, probably, right,
So it's not a real job in my opinion. It's

(07:23):
a very stupid job, but also extremely exhausting because if
you've ever talked about yourself or something you made over
and over and over again, hundreds and hundreds of times,
and you're trying to make sure that you don't just
start lying at some point or make a thing different
what I'm contradicting yourself, or because I'm not so famous

(07:43):
that if I said something that it would like offhand
that I read at Ama, that it would get pulled
out and become a headline. That if I said something
stupid enough, it could go viral. I gets I'm in
that area where it could become I could become a
main character the day if I went far enough off
the rails. And you know, Jenk, you've interacted with me

(08:05):
for a very long time. Sometimes I just say stuff
that isn't true because I think it's funny, but I
say it in a very serious way.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (08:14):
That's gotten me in trouble many times in my life,
and it's inevitable that that's going to lead to my downfall.
So it's like, I just have to get through this
week because once the book's out there, it's out there.
They can't you know, they can't stop it. But yeah,
I think we did that. I don't think I said
anything too controversial, but you know.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, we're we're coming through the redditt Ama looking for
something that could end you, and so far no luck.
But yeah, I mean we all aspire to be famous
enough that we you know, just saying the wrong thing
can make you make you the put you in the spotlight.
Cool quote worthy. By the way, your answer is suspiciously

(08:54):
similar to the answer of somebody who has a double
like doing this podcast. God, that would be great, huh,
but not me could be and someone it.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Wouldn't be for stuff like this anyway.

Speaker 5 (09:11):
It was Andrew WK. They there's a conspiracy theory that
they replaced him with a different dude, like halfway through
his career. Have you is anybody familiar with that? No?

Speaker 1 (09:21):
I because I am internet brained. I thought that was true.
I thought there were two Andrew Wks.

Speaker 5 (09:28):
It may absolutely be true. I don't know. I was
never able to get to the bottom of it.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
But yeah, wait, what what do they say is the
moment that the WK switched over? You know, is there
a thing where they're like, look at him in this album, now,
look at him in this album. It's not the same
guy or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, I mean, so there's the online equivalent of that
with Drill, right, everybody thinks Drill got replaced by like
a bot at some point recently. I'm trying to find
the Andrew WK story.

Speaker 5 (09:57):
Because the guy, the original guy, is very was always
very cryptic about the answer City gave when they asked him.
He would always be like, well, Andrew w WK was
never a person. It was always a multimedia experiment, explanation
of an exploration of a persona blah blah blah, and
so they kind of fed into it. But I actually

(10:17):
never found the answer.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Of yeah, I can't find it. I don't know why
I thought that was true.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
I've I've met him a few times. Like when I
worked at Playboy. We made a video that we created
a fake third political party for him called the Party
Party that like I helped make him, Like we created
a website and stuff, so like we texted for a
little bit that.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
I mean, he's very real.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
And that guy also would use like a rite aid
plastic bag is like his briefcase. Like he'd come to
the offices and he's like, let me empty, Like you
have this like plastic shopping bag and like his phone
in it and keys and like a notebook. And I
was always like, this guy is very interesting. But yeah,
I never heard that he had been swapped out ever.
But now I'm gonna have to look into that a

(11:02):
little bit.

Speaker 5 (11:02):
Listeners, there's a rabbit hole you can follow down. There
used to be a website dedicated entirely to this to track,
you know, all the evidence back when websites existed. I
maybe there's an app now or a YouTube video that
does the same thing, but it was, it was a
thing at one time.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah. The WK stands for who knows, you know, could
be true? We can't can't be confirmed or denied at
this point, Jason, we are going to get to know
you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're
going to tell the listeners to a couple of things
we're talking about. We're going to talk about new details
the Bipartisan report on the first assassination attempt that happened

(11:39):
on July thirteenth, a mirror that's two months ago, a
little over two months ago. That seems like a lifetime ago.
They released the Bipartisan report, and the only suspicious thing
is just like the Secret Service, like bad at their job,

(11:59):
which seemed to be the read from the start. Yeah,
it's like a carnival of errors, I think, is what
the report was titled. We're going to talk about the
death penalty, a thing that Democrats used to be against
for very good reasons, no longer on the party platform
for some reason. So we'll talk about that. We'll talk
about the price of eggs. We might even talk about

(12:22):
James Cameron joining an AI company's board of directors, which
you know he's like, actually, guys, nothing to fear here.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, yeah, so remember Miles Dyson, all that plenty more.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
But first, Jason, we like to ask our guest, what
is something from your search history?

Speaker 5 (12:44):
Hawk to a podcast? Real? Right? So I had seen
a whole bunch of memes on Twitter where people were
photoshopping the hawk to a girl onto a set discussing
some extremely academic subject in a podcast, and I thought, oh, okay,
they're calling her dumb whatever, and then saw a headline
that the Hawk to a podcast called talk to a

(13:07):
Uh huh. It was the number the number four podcasts
in the United States. It's like, oh, hold on, so
the podcast part is real. It's just that the memes
you're making are fake, and if so, what's the show about?
So I had to search and because I will admit
I cannot tell the difference between things people are just
joking about and things that actually happened. But yeah, apparently

(13:29):
successful podcast on I guess Jake Paul's work. And you've
probably covered all this. I was out of the loop.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah no, I mean we've covered it in a sense
that we were, you know, really we were in a
bidding war with Jake Paul trying to bring this podcast
onto our network. I think we did, say, like the
week before it was announced that she had a podcast,
who were like, man, someone needs to give her a podcast.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, in there it is.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Because she, I mean, does seem to be a delight.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
I know, Jason, you were seeing memes of it, like
the fake podcast, but then people were doing like memes
or comedy videos about the real talk to a thing.
It's like it was like all these bros getting together
like watching it on a big screen and be like, yeah,
it's like every single quip or funny line. And I
was like, okay, so now people are like kind of
leaning ironically into it and be like it's the fucking

(14:19):
sickest show.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
I have not seen it. When I saw that this
was your search history, I assumed that it was they
were trying to book you onto the Hawk Tua podcast
Talk to to talk about your new rank. She's she's
a fan of novels and literature, so obviously it makes sense.
Is the story that there was one point where they

(14:41):
said that Donald Trump canceled his appearance on the Hawk
Tua podcast. Was that real or was that like a
fake story? I think it was right immediately after the
second assassination attempted Florida. One of the headlines that came
off of that in the days immediately after, where Trump
cancels appearance on Talk to Her if you put.

Speaker 5 (15:03):
A gun to my head. I could not tell you
whether or not that was true.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Or the Express seems to be, oh the Express to
the Express Tribune, Well yeah, then of course, I mean
that seems weird. I mean, that's like a weird I mean,
like public use.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
She she's she wasn't really speaking like fondly of Trump,
So I don't know where that would have happened.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
But that was just like a fun thing for a
little while for people to do is have Trump on
your podcast, right, yeah, had him on and just told
him about cocaine. So yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
And this Hawk too, Yeah, that just seems like such
a terrible pairing, like the Hawk to a girl and
Donald Trump and whatever. Like letting him just talk freely
in that context I feel like would lead to I
don't know what it would lead to led to, but
maybe it would help him, who.

Speaker 5 (15:51):
Knows, I'm gonna say right now. Again, I don't know
if you discussed it when I came up. His appearance
on that THEO Vonn podcast that ironically fascinating because Deal
starts talking about doing cocaine and Donald Trump starts asking
him a bunch of probing questions and his first time
I'd seen him be like honestly interested in someone else

(16:12):
in their experiences. Yeah, and he's just being he wasn't
playing the character of Donald Trump that he's been playing
on TV for the last whatever fifty years and just
asking because he's genuinely because Trump Trump, you know, famously
does not drink or doesn't do drugs, I guess, And
it was just famously like fascinated by like what's the
mike and so you know, so so like what are you?
And there's THEO like, well, yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
You know, homie, Uh yeah, and uh being an l
out there man on your real street front port like
goddam be so heartbreaking for Donald Trump Junior because you
could have asked your own child about you know what
I mean and said, you're really interested in THEO Vaughn's
recap of doing that.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
I'm flying out here right here, dad, you can ask
me about being an owl or a street land.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Or maybe he's like, I've been hearing about this cocaine
a lot lately. Not should I do it? Anyone close
to me? If your dad did it, would you think
he was cool?

Speaker 5 (17:08):
What? No? Man?

Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah? That That is one of the great things that
podcasting has brought us, as that conversation. Unfortunately, Jason, what
is something do you think? Is overrated?

Speaker 5 (17:20):
I think all of the panic about like fake news
generated by AI and it was deep fakes for a while,
and all of that too, like generating a completely fake
story from whole cloth, is not and has never been
the real threat. I think the way that the news
media manipulates you will always be based on what stories

(17:43):
they choose to cover and not cover. Like all of
the news Autts choosing not to publish those hacked Trump
emails and side they're gonna sit on that. But like
the thing that you guys you referenced about the story
with the Haitian immigrants eating the pets, the reason that
fake story worked is because Fox News had been laying

(18:06):
the groundwork for years by just cherry picking actual crimes.
Because in a country of three hundred million people, you
can find a trend, whatever trend you want. So anytime
an illegal immigrant ran a stoplight, Fox News ran that
as a headline and creates by just carefully sorting through. Again,

(18:29):
you know, if a report comes out that says, well, actually,
you know, native born people are more likely to commit
crimes and immigrants, you simply you simply don't report it. Yeah,
And likewise, like this thing with the you know, the
governor North Carolina and that guy Mark Rappinsons his name
with all that crazy, like Fox News devoted like seven

(18:49):
minutes to that yesterday, Like they simply just bury it
and in their broadcast. That will always be the way
by which people get into bubbles and get programmed. It's not,
but it does not require the fake new stuff will
be a problem. It doesn't require a hoax. Just filtering
what you report and choose not to report will always,

(19:11):
by far be the most powerful thing, because for the
most part, you're sticking to things that are real. It's
just that they're not representative of what's going on, but
you can absolutely create the impression.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
That they are. Yeah, just a wild selection bias has
always been the way that the US media tends to
operate because it's a big country and they know what
stories they can get a lot of eyeballs on because
they're scary and reinforced preconceived fears and beliefs.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
And probably the easiest way to manufacture consent too, it
is just by being like, and what if we just
tell people about this all the time, and now when
the decision comes to do something awful, you're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay,
that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
I didn't know that. Like they So they're just not
publishing the Trump emails because the.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
Political The Washington Post, I think Judd Lugum, also at
Popular Information, said he was offered these documents, and he
said because he was involved in the Podesta emails, and
he just doesn't think that anything in the emails are
necessarily of note. Outside of just showing like a shitty
campaign that was like his logic. But then it's also like, well,

(20:22):
what's the logic of these other papers because they were
more than willing to publish the emails in the last
like in the twenty sixteen cycle. But it's yeah, it's
just kind of like, well, what what exactly like tell
us what the logic is of it? Yeah, but yeah,
that's that's sort of like where I feel like that
story is kind of out at the moment.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, we were talking about this a little bit last
week with regards to there was a Russian created fake
media like fake a local news story about Kamala Harris
like running someone over in her car and then like
driving away in San Francisco, and like people were just
you know, you could see that it was a fake

(21:00):
news site that doesn't actually exist. They created the URL
two days before. It wasn't overly convincing, and it didn't
seem to like get that much media attention other than
the debunking of it got a lot of attention. Whereas
you know, just Elon Musk having as many followers in
as much sway as he has just tweeting any dumb

(21:23):
bullshit absent mindedly is pretty I think, more influential than
I want to believe.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
It is also well yeah, now, especially with the block
function being like, ah, even if you block me, you're
still going to see my bullshit.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 5 (21:39):
I think that the thing with Hillary's emails in twenty sixteen,
I think that is the perfect example of what I'm
talking about here, because that was the case where I
think if you interviewed one thousand people both sides, and said,
can you summarize what was scandalous about her emails the
whole but her emails them, which became the number one
story that entire campaign because those were released in a

(22:02):
drip feed where it's like a new revelation every day,
Can you summarize what the deal was with those emails
and why that should be a deciding factor in who
you vote for. I think not five people in a
thousand could accurately explain. But when The New York Times
has Hillary clinton emails as the a one story every day,

(22:22):
Hillary Clint't email scandal, by putting it at the top
of the front page, you are saying that it's important.
You are saying that it's huge and impactful and this
must be a terrible crime that's been Like, this must
be disqualifying. So even if you watching it don't fully
understand what's bad about it or what it means or whatever,

(22:44):
it doesn't matter because giving it that place on the
front page indicates that it matters, and it's a negative story.
So he's saying, Hey, all the other stuff in this
selection not important. This email server, your personal email server.
Security candidates using personal email for like, that's what matters.
That's the thing that's at stake in this election. And

(23:07):
they set the agenda that way. Again, the stuff they
were reporting wasn't fake, it's just the amount of spotlight
they chose to give to it as opposed to anything
else that created the impression that it is I think
as false as any something that was you know, that
had been gend up out of whole cloth.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think, yeah. It gave a
look into like sort of what was going on in
the DNC.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
But then people like.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
John Podesta called a guy a prick and this is
his risotto recipe and what. But they're at the same time, like,
you know, Colin Powell also had a private email server.
A lot of people like what it, what's the emphasis
about But yeah, now it's just very.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Much like it's not in the public interest Jason. What's
something you think is underrated.

Speaker 5 (23:52):
The degree to which the most important stuff And this
election probably has not happened yet twenty sixteen, the thing
with Hillary's emails that wasn't until October Trump's remember the
Access Hollywood tape grabbing by the Pussy tape that didn't
come out until October seventh. The James Comu letter that

(24:14):
we thought that that probably did throw the election to Trump,
that wasn't until October twenty eighth. So in an election
just close where it's going to be swayed by like
ten thousand people, it's probably going to it'll be determined
by something that happens between now and November fifth. There's
something probably in the month of October. That's when most
people actually finally start paying attention, and there will be

(24:36):
some story, some event, something's going to happen that will
probably tilt things one way or the other.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's the October surprise of it all.
And we're not even in October, so we'll see what. Yeah,
this cycle breaks, and I'm sure for people who are
like the ones trying to peddle as much like wacky
misinformation or whatever. They're probably sitting on like their most
potent you know, weapons. And yeah, like you're saying close,
much closer to the election, because that's really when Yeah,

(25:04):
like it has the most impact on people's at least
perception of what's happening.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, an official like what was saying last week that
like the final forty eight hours before the election are
going to be absolute chaos on social media, right, But yeah,
that's really upsetting that the Access Hollywood tape wasn't until
October seventh, Like that that was one where it was
like a bombshell that people like got over.

Speaker 5 (25:32):
Yeah, that's a thing where people in the wake it
was like, oh my gosh, she's gonna have to drop
out done because they still didn't understand how impervious, Like
he didn't lose a single vote from that, Like they didn't.
And this is why if I had to put money
on this election, I would bet on Trump because Kamala
Harris can be heard by a scandal. Trump is impervious

(25:53):
to scandal. Yeah, there is no headline that I can
imagine they would actually steer people away from Trump. He's
just he's been like, what would it even be about?
Nothing about sex, that stuff's already out there, nothing about racism,
nothing about financial wrongdoing. All of that stuff he's already
some of which he's been charged with in court and

(26:15):
found guilty. So it's like, what could come out that
hasn't already come out. It just feels like he has
an immunity that he's built up, and that seems to
be his superpower, because it's true that his support seems
to top out like forty seven percent or whatever in polls,
but nothing pushes it down. Nothing. Yeah, So it just
feels like such a double standard where only one candidate

(26:38):
is vulnerable to some bad story that they will come
out with something a week for the election or two
days before, and it seems like only one candidate is
vulnerable to that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yeah, I mean, I think we've joked, we're like, what
could even be the thing that his own support is like, oh, well,
that's a bridge too far, Like it's like, would it
even be something like a super progressive policy see or
something like that, or then even then they're like no,
actually no, I'm actually for that. Actually I think climate
change is really important and we should we should stop fracking.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
It's like, oh fuck, like what is it? But it's
definitely been rumors that he's on tape like calling his
supporters like, you know, horrible things and being very derisive
towards his own supporters they love. I don't think that would.
I don't think that would do it at all. Like
that's the closest I think even if it was.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
It's like and Donald Trump has been Hillary Clinton all along,
people are like, I.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Don't know, man, I don't know even if she's yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
The yeah, if he literally was on tape being like
they are a basket of deplorables, I think they're discussed
like it would be the tape, like if there was
the tape that would undo the politician in the movie
about a corrupt politician. Whereas they're just like I hate
them all and I'm gonna kill them when I get
into office. We're gonna like take all their money away,

(27:59):
and like that probably wouldn't do it. Like they just
find a way to justify.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
It well because they're like, well he's still he's still
going to bring the pain, right, yeah, yeah, they're like
ringing the pain.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Then we're that why can stomach anything. Yeah, all right,
let's take a quick break and we'll come back and
talk about some news, and we're back. We're and the

(28:32):
Senate has released their bipartisan report on what happened at
the July thirteenth Trump rally in Butler, And yeah, it
seems to be basically what we thought at the time
that like, the most noteworthy thing is the incompetence of
the Secret Service to kind of do their job.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
And just like law enforcement, communicating seemed to be the
big thing that they Again, the main findings were Secret
Service failed to sufficiently coordinate with state and local law enforcement,
failed to adequately cover the building where Trump's attempted assassin
fired from, failed to address line of sight concerns, denied
requests for additional resources, and failed to pass on to

(29:16):
other law law enforcement that there was a there was
quote credible intelligence of a threat. And they also noted
in the report that the Secret Service denied responsibility or
tried to deflect blame when pressed about their individual roles.
So like again, so it sounds like the biggest errors
were there just weren't enough people available to secure all

(29:37):
the buildings that could have posed a potential threat. And
then sniper teams didn't tell Trump's details specifically to get
him off the stage when they had identified a potential threat,
like minutes had passed where they're like, like, I think
they're like, yeah, normally you would have just told him, yo,
get this guy off the stage, Like we have police
officers rushing a building, like with their guns drawn to something,

(29:58):
so that would immediately be like, okay, pull the lug
on this.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
But that was not the case. You see them like
in the in that video draw down on the sniper
like and you know, starting to get serious as he's
like continuing to deliver his I guess you could call
it a stumps whatever his remark remarks. So yeah, that
was always the weirdest thing about their response was that
they just didn't They weren't like, hey, we have a snight,

(30:24):
you know, they didn't communicate the out loud.

Speaker 5 (30:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
And obviously also the weirdest thing is the water the
guy who was on the water tower who was clearly
fired yeah from two miles away, or how the person
who fired a shot. The conspiracy theory that this was
all staged one of one of them involves a guy
on a water tower two miles away who fired the
shot that grazed Trump's ear, So just an a supernatural

(30:54):
marksmanship being relied on to graze his ear so that
he wouldn't act actually be hurt. But yeah, yeah, where's
the report on that?

Speaker 3 (31:06):
Well, I mean the House. The House is doing their
their version of investigation too. Since that's a Republican controlled body,
I'm sure you might get a slightly spicier take on
what is happening. But yeah, overall, it sounds like a big,
big boo boo, big failure since the Reagan assassination attempt.

Speaker 5 (31:24):
Here's a good life lesson in this for any of
you young people out there, because you're going to find
this happen in your own life. You can have a
system in place that is deeply broken or neglected, and
it can take a long time to notice it because
the thing that it's predesigned to prevent just hasn't happened.

(31:45):
For example, whenever there's an earthquake, a whole lot of
buildings will fall over that it turns out we're not
up to code, because it turns out you build a
building and all the anti earthquakes stuff you're supposed to
do if you bribe an inspector. It's fine because it
may be fifty years before an earthquake happens. The whole
time that building looks fine. This is very similar to that.

(32:07):
It seems like their processes, they're staffing, their training, everything
had been degrading. They'd been kind of half asking it.
But it you just don't know, because there aren't that
many serious assassination attempts. There's lots of nut jobs, like
some idiot with a flare gun tried to climb the
fence at the White House and the President wasn't even there,

(32:29):
but where somebody planned it, found a spot, was good
with the weapon, knew we you know, studied where to go,
how to get up there undetected. That's rare. And when
someone finally tries it, they find a process that is broken,
the process of that whole perimeter they're supposed to clear
and cooperating with the local cops to clear that perimeter,

(32:51):
to communicate about the spons and where somebody needed to
be all that that process was. And you will find
in your business or in your marriage or anything, stuff
that looks fine for years until the bad thing happens
and you realize how unprepared you were this is this

(33:11):
was almost a and it's funny enough because we're like
doing this report and it's you know, page three news.
It's like, okay, we're in some alternate universe where this
man's head exploded in four K in front of the world.
That there would be you know, like we would know
the names of these Secret Service agents like we would
all they would be household names of which guy allowed

(33:34):
this failure, which person failed to you know, report the
guy on the roof and so on. And instead of
just like yeahs and yeah they could we could have
done better, guys, we kind of fumbled it, kind of
biffed it there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
The I mean the two things that earthquake prevention and
like checking every possible threat and eye line have in
common is they're both so annoying to do and it
probably won't even happen, So like, what is your fucking deal?
So you have that, you have that dynamic combined with

(34:10):
I feel like anytime the Secret Service is involved in
a action movie, like they're pretty locked up. Like even
when the plot is like this is the guy who
allowed JFK to be assassinated like in the Line of Fire,
it's still like he is Clint Eastwood, and he's like
a super heroic like badass who that they ultimately saved

(34:32):
the president this time around. And I feel like it,
don't they like White House Down and like those movies?
Isn't their Secret Service involved in those? I feel like
just generally, yeah, I feel like the branding being done
for the Secret Service is pretty strong.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah, for the most rather than like sex worker scandals
like when during Obama's presidency and shit like that, Like
these guys sound like a bunch of frat guys.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah no, no, no, no, no, no, they're Gerard Butler. They're Gerard Butler. Yeah.
Like so they described this as the biggest Secret Service
failure since the Reagan assassination attempt, but like even the
Reagan assassination attempt, I the thing I remember is like
a guy standing there with like a tiny Uzi in
his hand, looking bad ass, like being a Milwaukie talkie, you know,

(35:18):
and like, yeah, he got shot though, he got shot,
and then the other guy who got the guy who
got shot in paralyzed who Brady right that who they
named laws after. And I did not, truly did not
know the Reagan assassination attempt was seen as a secret
service failure.

Speaker 5 (35:34):
Totally forgotten, like we don't remember it that way, you know.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, I had a fucking little uzzi, like a cute uzy.
That's unbelievable. It's unbelievable that they gave them that too,
especially man, Yeah, especially when you know what happened with JFK,
What actually happened with JFK. Tell him, tell him Jack.
I can't do it, Miles. We have other stories to
get to. All right, I think that's another podcast accidentally

(36:00):
delivered the kill shot. All right, let's talk about the
death penalty. Yeah, because so yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Yeah, it's an arcane feature of our car sol system
that should be done away with.

Speaker 5 (36:13):
You know.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
The reason I think it's important to talk about because
on Tuesday Marcellus Williams was put to death in Missouri.
And he's a man that even prosecutors thought was innocent
of a nineteen ninety eight murder. Williams and his lawyers
had been in like a long fight to clear his
name and to prevent him from being put to death
by the state for the murder of woman Felicia Gale.

(36:35):
They had previously been granted stays twice due to the
murky nature of the conviction, and like, despite mishandling of evidence,
reliance on like jailhouse snitch testimony, a racist jury selection process,
and a total lack of DNA evidence that tying him
to the crime scene whatsoever, Governor Mike Parson let the
execution go forward. The NAACP has described it as a lynching,

(36:58):
and you know, the death penalty is again I think
this is why it's important to look at it in
a like a sort of larger context in terms of
like policy, right, because it's not only just a waste
of resources, but it's also a glaring example of how
our carcial system disproportionately again affects people of color. You
look at, you know, the death row population is forty
one percent black, even though black people make up about

(37:19):
thirteen percent of the US population. You look at just
even how you know, like when victims are white and
the accused is a person of color, like the people
like seeking the death penalty goes up exponentially. But if
you like have a victim that is a person of color,
and even if the perpetrator or the accused is white,
the figures are much less in favor of the death penalty.

(37:43):
So there's like example after example and study after study
just shows like the inherent racism that the system is
built on. And I think this example in Missouri is
just another you know, it just encapsulates how black men
are viewed by our you know, quote unquote justice system.
Because the victim's family even wanted, will you life to
be spared? You know, they're like, we like, for us

(38:03):
closure would be for his life to be spared. And
they're like we would love to have his sentence commuted
or whatever, just please like spare his life. But the
governor of Missouri, Parson, he just has a really terrible
track record when it comes to clemency and that he
has never granted it when it comes to the death penalty,
like he wouldn't even like not even people were in
death row, Like he wouldn't even pardon people that were

(38:25):
proven innocent. And there was even someone actually who they
found who was guilty of the crime, literally serving a
sentence for that crime. He wouldn't even pardon those people
and they were black. But you know, you know where
this is going. You know who he does give pardons
to a white cop who murdered a black man in
twenty nineteen and one of our favorite characters from the

(38:48):
summer of twenty twenty, the mccloskey's like the white couple
on the log with the guns who pulled guns on
like those protesters outside of their house, and the woman
who was just very loosely holding up pistol.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, yeah, they they received part like a like a
fifth glass of Chardonay, just like loosely in her hand.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Just arrating it. Yeah, just got it, just to let
it breathe a little bit. I gotta let this thing breathe. So,
I mean, oddly enough, then this is why this sort
of relates to the election too, is the death penalty
was another one of those planks of the Democrats platform
that just went poof this year. Like in twenty sixteen,
the platform said we will abolish the death penalty, which

(39:29):
has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
And you're like, what the fuck happened?

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Like Joe Biden even ran on being against the death
penalty in twenty twenty, but now it's completely different. And
Kamala Harris, to her credit, actually is a decent track
record on this too, Like as Da, She's like, I
will not seek the death penalty, and she didn't. Her
twenty nineteen campaign website said, quote, Kamala believes the death
penalty is immoral, discriminatory, ineffective, and a gross misuse of

(39:57):
taxpayer taxpayer dollars. So like, recently journalists reached out to
the campaign and asked about their like their her specific
stance and the death penalty. They got no response at all,
And it's just like, what, like, you know, yeah again,
Joe Biden ran didn't seem risky for Joe Biden.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
He won in twenty twenty.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
I mean it was close, but was was it down
to the pro death penalty vote that.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Would have swayed things?

Speaker 3 (40:22):
And I think that's just kind of like another odd thing,
an example of like shifting to this like courting a
voter that I'm I'm like, who is this voter you're
trying to court by like removing this plank of the
Democratic platform because again.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Your positions, like that changing your positions doesn't help you,
even though I like, I get the logic, it's been
the logic of the mainstream Democratic Party since the Clintons,
but it doesn't work because it makes it seem like
you don't have the courage of your convictions or any
like any strong beliefs like which seems to be what

(41:00):
people respond to. They want to have a sense of
like who you are on these things.

Speaker 5 (41:05):
But I was really curious about this because I had
looked up I wanted to see if the death penalty
had gotten more popular or why they would go away
from being anti. And it's really interesting because back as
recently as the mid nineties, the death penalty on. They
have like Gallup polls in this In nineteen ninety four,
eighty percent of Americans were in favor of the death penalty.

(41:26):
That was like at the apex of the crime, the
nineties crime epidemic and the crack epidemic and all of
that stuff. And it has been slowly declining ever since
the point now it's like fifty three to forty four,
fifty three in favor forty four percent against. The death
penalty is less popular now than pretty much at any
point in history in terms. So and we don't you know,

(41:50):
there's like camp the states still have the death penalty,
but a lot of those that do have gone into
a moratorium. They haven't executed anybody in decades. Nationwide, we
executed twenty four people last year, which is a lot
if you think in terms of the state killing people,
but in terms of the total number of people we
have like in prison and on death row, it's not

(42:12):
that many. We don't like to do it very often.
The federal government hadn't executed anybody in almost two decades
prior to Trump becoming president, and then they turned that
back on. But I don't know, it's interesting because it
feels like one of those things that has just been
kind of fading from the system anyway. So to now

(42:33):
be afraid of coming out as being anti death penalty
when this seems like the safest time to do it,
I don't know that I get.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
It well, especially on the back of this story, Like
you can be like this is why we need to
rethink this, like we're just putting people to death, or
even the prosecution is like I have we got serious
doubts about this conviction honestly, like that that we're still
moving forward with this, And you know, Hillary good Friend
and Jacobin like raised the point in terms of how
Democrats this was specific to immigration, how like they are

(43:02):
now sounding pretty similar to Republicans, Like if you look
at the ads that the Harris campaign is taking out
in like Arizona at there sort of she's like she
was a border state DA and she knows how to
be tough on the border and like illegal immigration, and
it's basically just echoing very similar rhetoric in terms of
like the we have to secure the border from immigrants

(43:24):
rhetoric that comes out of Republicans, and like she's sort
of positive. She's like, if voters are attracted by like
a candidate like that stands for the corolest punishments, Like
why why would they settle for second best? Especially when
you have Trump who's like, I'm going to expand the
death penalty to fucking haters and drug deal like anybody.
And it's just like what I'm I'm just fail again

(43:44):
to understand, like this, it's it's fine, why remove that?
Just just keep You're like, to Jason's point, their support
for this is dwindling, and I get that it's a
small majority, but this doesn't seem like the kind of
issue voter. They're like, we gotta really be careful with
the death penalty. And I get why they would be
with like things like fracking or whatever that's more top

(44:05):
of mind, but the death penalty just seems like such
an odd thing to just sort of just ignore now,
given again that we're seeing this is something that affects
the community that Takamma.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Herself is like a part of.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
So I feel like this should be an afterthought to
be like yeah, man, and fuck the death penalty too,
Like that's it is what it is.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
I think it's because of that, Like I think they
would say, like they're playing defense against like Willie Horton shit,
and like a good portion of the voting population is
racist and she's a woman of color and they need
to like counterbalance that and like do this like you know,
strategic triangulation so that she is like protected against attacks

(44:45):
on that. But it's just it takes the humanity out
of it. It's not an effective way to run a campaign.
And we've seen that year after year with the Democratic Party.

Speaker 5 (44:57):
And while I've seen people tons of people run being
tough on crime, I can't remember anybody running specifically on
more death penalty. The death penalty is great, Like it
doesn't the pro death penalty side doesn't have like an
anti abortion like an equivalent of that movement where there's
like a death penalty voter other than you have tons
of anti death penalty voters. But in terms of there

(45:19):
being like pro I don't know. I don't see people
taking to the streets like demanding this guy being killed
despite you know, everything about the case being shaky. I
don't know. I don't get it. But also a side note,
if you're a fan of true crime and you read
a lot or listen to a lot of podcasts about
famous murder cases, so many trials are just like this, right, yeah,

(45:43):
where the only testimony is from somebody who got their
own sentence reduced, where the DNA stuff is like kind
of shaky and it looked like it's actually kind of
matched somebody who wasn't there and actually his wasn't technically
at the scene, and the one person who thought they
saw him at the scene their testimony actually contradicted. That

(46:04):
is common. Yeah, and you see something like we group
people like my age grew up with the OJ case
back in the nineties and watched when you actually have
high class lawyers who can pick through every little bit
of the house of cards of evidence and to a
jury can make it look like, yeah, this is a
bunch of circumstantial crap. They've cobbled together. Nobody saw them there.

(46:25):
We don't have a murder weapon, you don't have a
direct witness. Now the rest of it's all questionable. It's like, hey,
that's every case. It is so rare that they've got
a guy on camera doing it or whatever, and so
they piece together a case. I'm sure they get it
right most of the time because a lot of times
it is obvious, you know, husband kills his wife. Whatever,

(46:46):
there's not you're gonna claim that, like, no, actually a
serial killer broke in and then left no traces behind.
But in still many cases like this, they've pieced together
what looks like a strong case, but you start pulling
at any of the individual thread it's so shaky.

Speaker 3 (47:02):
Yeah, And I mean like whenever we've had you know,
like public defenders on as guests too, that we always
are reminded of how like, you know, when the prosecutors
they think they have someone or the cops think they
have someone, like they just got to go all in
on it. Or other times, just like in the process
of interrogating people, it's like wear them the fuck down
until they kind of break and admit maybe they had
something to do with it. And at least we can

(47:23):
run with that. But yeah, again, it's like it's just odd.
It feels like low hanging fruit or just the very
least something that wasn't controversial. But I think because everything
needs to be, No, this person isn't a liberal, even
though they're running as a Democrat, like they're actually tough
on crime in the border. You just get this like
weird dissonance that I think for even like like longtime

(47:44):
Democratic voters like wait, what the what what what is
this the Republican Party or what the fuck is going on?
But again, this this is clearly the strategy for that
campaign to try and figure out how do we pick
off the most people in the middle to try and
deny M a win. And I mean, the polling is
it's it's it seems very close. But we again, we

(48:07):
will see where that goes. But I just don't it's
just a really weird thing to sort of like shy
away from. It doesn't seem like I get why you'd
probably be like I don't know about universal healthcare because
they're gonna say I'm a socialist or whatever. But the
death penalty is like again but just it's it's fucking stupid.
And we don't need it anymore.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah, I don't appreciate you disparaging the al theory from
the staircase, but I agree with everything else he said.
Let's take a quick break, we'll be right back, and
we're back. We're back, And James Cameron just made headlines.

(48:51):
And this time it's not for announcing like the fourteenth
Avatar film. This time he is joining the board equally dispiriting,
he's joining the board of directors for Stability AI. By
the way, I enjoyed both Avatar movies. I don't know
why I turned into Trump there, but I wish and
I think he is making a different film that I'll

(49:15):
look up what the other film is. But this is
just a bummer because you know, he's always been at
the forefront of special effects. And the board that he's
joining is the AI firm that developed the Stable Diffusion
Text to Image generative AI model, which is where like
a image and video focused model that I think creates

(49:39):
like some of the wild like this is AI videos
that look like an acid trip, like that you put
a camera on someone's brain during an acid trip. What's
the what does he gain from this exactly?

Speaker 3 (49:54):
I mean, like I know, he's always into like technology
in terms of filmmaking like that. He always prides himself
being on the cutting edge of stuff like that. But
like with this, is he of the cool version, like
he'll bring it down from the inside.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
But he's always been more acutely aware of anyone of
the dangers of artificial intelligence.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
So right, yeah, exactly, i'man like a cautionary tale. All
gave us a terminator.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
But maybe if we take a new look at that
movie and it's secretly like, oh I want I want
a robot that would be so sick, is like the
thesis of that movie.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
His quote here is saying that the intersection of generative
AI and CGI image creation maybe the next wave. That
means the ability to effects with that having to pay
people to do the effects.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Oh he likes money, Okay.

Speaker 5 (50:50):
So it will be phrased as to make the process
more efficient, right whatever, So you can just have a
server room and a piece of software that instead of
because I remember back in Titanic that was nineteen ninety seven,
the movie came out, you know, shot ninety five ninety six.
When they were doing all those effects, that stuff was
rendered frame by frame, like those water droplets that were

(51:11):
coming off the hull of the boat, that was all
cgi and that was a person painting those in So
I do not doubt that when you know the budget
of that film, a lot of that went to artist,
talented artists spending many thousands of hours doing work by
hand to make it look just right, because it was
hard to beat the human eye when it comes to
making something like that look good. But if that was

(51:34):
just a piece of software that you could tell it
make water run off the side of this thing, and
then it runs overnight and then boom, there you go,
and you did not have to pay a single person,
I don't know. I guess like that's how all automation works.
But to have a creative person want to bring that
to the creative world, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
I mean, you're great when you make millions of dollars,
I guess that's just what will happen to you, you know,
like we're just sort of like I can imagine too,
is like how much is it gonna cost? All I
want is the fucking guy to fall off the boat,
hit the big propeller blade and then flop.

Speaker 5 (52:11):
Into the fucking water.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
What fifty thousand dollars just for that. Now fuck this.
And then this is where like I'll drop a fucking
guy off of the drop a guy off the Titanic
shot is the practical set still up?

Speaker 3 (52:24):
Do we still have the setup in Mexico? Fuck it, dude,
I'll do it. Just fucking drop. I'll fucking get the
propeller blade. Man, I don't want to fucking pay that. Yeah, man, yeah,
well I need this shit, so yeah, I mean, it's
just it's a again, like to your point, like Jason's,
like when someone who values creativity and it has like
always talked about his own love of imagination and like
always exploring all the ways that you can express like

(52:47):
your ideas in cinema to then be like, yeah, but
that other person who's integral to that and me even
getting to where I am totally fuck that person completely
because it's too expensive, and like that's just not just
just it's just too.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
Much, man, it's just slow shit down. Well, the company
is not currently building liquid metal killing machines. It is
being sued for copyright infringement and just laid off a
bunch of staff members, so they're already doing the work
that they will probably be helping James Cameron do.

Speaker 5 (53:17):
Yeah, And because to be clear, the way this thing
will make special effects is you will have it scan
a bunch of existing movies, including effects humans created, and
it will say, oh, I know how to do that.
Now you need like a spaceship flying up out of water.
You eat all those water droplets like some person did
by hand when whatever movie came out fifteen years ago. Well,

(53:40):
guess what I've got that in the database. Could you
imagine scanned that movie right?

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Right?

Speaker 3 (53:46):
And like movies just start looking like sampled music tracks
and stuff where you're like, bro, I'm pretty sure that's
the wave from the Perfect Storm in this movie, Like
what the fuck? And like, yeah, do you see that
guy fall off the boat? I think that was the
propeller guy from Titanic. They just recontextualize it for this film.

Speaker 5 (54:02):
It's just there, like the will just extreme. Yes, Like
that's the explosion. Look, they used it. They used the
explosion from Armygeddon.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
They it's a guy, but they have to like change
things so like it's a guy running down the street,
but they're using the guy falling off the Titanic and
they're like and then he hits this thing and starts
spinning for something different plane.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
Yeah, just a different gravitational plane. Full You're like, is
that physically possible?

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Yeah, he's being blown down the street. It was a
big wind. They just have like a voiceover, guy coming,
Can I Can.

Speaker 5 (54:32):
I ask you guys a question because you you are
obviously covering the news every single day, You've probably done
many stories about AI and stuff like that. Yeah, why
is it that in the cultural imagination? Why is it
then the headlines all of the examples of AI, it's
all this nonsense. It's it can create a very bad
photograph with too many fingers. It can create a very

(54:52):
trippy video that has the worst uncanny valley thing you've
ever seen in your life. We think that maybe someday
it will make movies for you, So that why is
it all the one thing none of us want AI
to do instead of Hey, we think in the future,
it can diagnose cancer faster than a doctor, can't. We
think in the future, it can you know, help genetically

(55:14):
engineer crops. It can survive drought and climate change. Like,
why is there like an image issue or a marketing
issue on the side of these AI people, or is
that really where they're putting their money right now, Like,
is all the work actually going into all of this
media stuff instead of like it's solving people's everyday problems
that would get them excited about it.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
I think all this stuff is kind of part of
like this this sort of circus aspect of it that
keeps people like interested on a general level and be like, oh, whoa,
it does this. It does that because it like for
the people that they're really trying to appeal to, like
on Wall Street, it's probably easier for them to connect
the dots rather than like, oh, it can do really
complex computations that could maybe like make cause breakthroughs for science.

(55:59):
It's like, hey men, articles can be written quicker without people,
or it can make a little video for your advertising company.
But then I think what they're also showing is like
it's they're like how it's getting better, And that's also
part of the process. Like, look, do you remember when
Will Smith was eating spaghetti all weird, like a couple
months ago. Now Will Smith eats spaghetti even like a

(56:19):
little less weird.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
So it's getting better, y'all. And who knows where this
who knows what Will.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
Smith can do in the next iteration of this and
people like, oh shit, yeah, yeah, it's getting better and
better and better, while at the same time, like people
on Wall Street, I'm like, dude, this it's all this
stuff is horseshit, Like it's not even close to doing
the kinds of things that they wanted to freak people
out about with. It's just sort of becoming an energy
drain and something that isn't actually creating any kind of
financial return. So it's just I think, just all like

(56:46):
spectacle at this point to try and you know, cover
for the fact that it's it's not really doing like
the sky neet kind of shit.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
Sam Altman wants you to think of it, Yeah, it
can answer the question how many rs are in strawberry,
and so instead they're putting a very sexy, exciting possibility
on the horizon of like what it could be doing, which, again, yeah,
to your point, nobody wants it to do that. It
can do those scientific things. It does feel like that

(57:14):
should be where they're focusing. Like the thing about figuring
out the structure of proteins, like years before we would
have been able to do that with just humans is
really cool and like feels like they should just focus
on that, but I think that idea is a little abstract.
And then I also think because of the way money

(57:37):
is spent in the entertainment industry, you can have not
very much and get a lot of people to spend
a lot of money, like based, you know, so they
can just promise great things while actually having absolute bullshit
and trick a lot of people. It's if you google
how many ares in the word strawberry? Right now, it's
still coming back. The word strawberry has two rs. It's

(58:00):
did search over you, like even right now, it's still
doing it. But then it's like, however, AI models can
sometimes make mistakes when answering the question about this word,
and then like makes an excuse and you like, then
the fuck, dude, you can't count three rs in a word?

Speaker 5 (58:15):
Yeah, right, because it's not it's not thinking. People keep
assuming that it is thinking. It's not. It's just predicting
the next string of text. It's it's this is what
I've never gotten. I realized that I am a ludite
here when it comes to AI. But an ai has
never lived in the world, So when an AI is

(58:37):
trying to describe something to you, it has never experienced
that thing. It's grabbing some text that doesn't mean anything
to it and just stringing it together and maybe it
will be it will form a coherence since maybe it won't.
But it's you know, you can an AI can go
find you a recipe for cornbread, because there's a million

(58:58):
recipes for cornbread on the internet. They can go grab
you one. It has never eaten corn bread. It cannot
It cannot tell you how to improve your corn bread
recipe because it has no concept of what that should
taste like, or it's never touched it. It's I don't know.
I get such a disconnect from people. It's like, well, someday,
you know, you'll have an AI friend that can if
your lonely can talk to It's like yeah, but it's

(59:20):
you won't be able to talk to it about anything
because it has never lived a life. If it's joking
with you, it's just grabbing a joke it found in
its database that somebody else told somewhere on the internet
and it just stole it. But it can't it can't
observe something about the world because it doesn't live in
the world. So you're not having You're just talking to

(59:40):
your yourself.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
Yeah, and we we have talked about this so frequently
that our listeners are like, yeah, no, we guys, shut
the fuck up.

Speaker 5 (59:51):
I do not listen to the show. Guys, Yeah I
didn't know.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
That, and that is unacceptable. But we'll talk about that
off Mike. But yeah, I mean we've just so if people,
well haven't heard those episodes we've had, like people who
aren't experts in AI come on and say the same
thing that Jason was just saying, like, these are the
same basic idea as the autocomplete in your phone. Just

(01:00:13):
predicting the next word, that's all it's doing. It's just
doing it at a higher level that requires the.

Speaker 5 (01:00:20):
Burning of lots of fossil fuels.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Yeah, hey, and it's just it's it's spectacle that will
hopefully inspire increased investment. And that's really what it's all
boiling down to at the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
I mean, Amazon named one of their companies of the
mechanical turk, like they're they know their fucking well, they
know their fucking well. It's a fucking guy inside. There's
a guy in there, dumb dumbs, it's not fucking real.
Jason Pargen as always, what a pleasure having you where
can people find you?

Speaker 5 (01:00:46):
Follow you?

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Uh, and also read your new book.

Speaker 5 (01:00:51):
The book is called I'm Starting to worry about this
Black Box of Doom. It is not political, but it
is relevant. And this about a bunch of people on
the Internet who'd think that they have gotten one of
a domestic terror attack and they're going to try to
stop it. But it is a bunch of strangers on
the Internet with Internet poisoned brained uh, Internet poisoned brains,

(01:01:14):
and it goes just as badly as you would expect.
So yeah, that book is available now in all formats,
including audio. I do not read the audiobook. They hired
a professional to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
And it isn't me for some reason. It's a very
good read. Everybody shoul check it out. Is there a
work of media, Jason that you've been enjoying.

Speaker 5 (01:01:35):
I've got a tweet that I like. That's from Twitter
user PJ Evans says, Paul Thomas Anderson. Sounds like something
your mom says to you when you're acting up. Paul
Thomas Anderson.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Getting here right now. Mom. That's not even my name.
I don't give it.

Speaker 5 (01:01:54):
Richard, would you do?

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Dude?

Speaker 5 (01:01:58):
Still?

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Do that?

Speaker 5 (01:01:58):
Use your middle name when they're mad. I don't know
if that's a reference, that's an old time you reference it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
My parents definitely did it, okay, but I can't speak
to whether parents do it anymore because I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
Yeah, I think culturally specific to to do the three
name call out.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Yeah yeah. They suddenly start treating you like an assassin.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
Yeah yeah, Like my mom would just be like buck
ah yeah, stupid in Japanese.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
I'm like, oh yea, yeah, what John Christopher O'Brien, what
I knew I was. I was in some ship.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
When I heard that, I knew I was in some
ship with my mom yelled out my social security dude,
That's why I fucking knew all my identifying information.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
If I if I did ever assassinate any anyone, that
would be what I'd go down as. John Christopher O'Brien,
you know, oh right, right right, yeah, hey man, he's
our JC man. You know, Hey, Miles, Yeah, where can
people find you as their work media you've been enjoying?
Uh yeah, let's see.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
I'm on Twitter and Instagram at Miles of Gray you
can find and Jack and I on the basketball podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Miles and Jack got my boosties.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
They can find me talking about ninety day fiance on
for twenty Day fiance.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Uh tweet I like is from at Falca. It says, Yo,
what's up. It's your Spotify DJ.

Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
Damn you got some fire taste, nef Well, let me
put you onto something I ain't think you heard before
now playing million Dollar Baby, the biggest hits that Spotify
DJ is sometimes so off. I'm like, please, just I
don't know why I aerently hit that button. I saw
that tweet and I was unaware of this product. So
there's a there's a an AI DJ. Oh, it's like,

(01:03:37):
what's up, Jack, It's me your DJ. We're gonna get
into some grooves that you were really messing with last year,
and let's start the vibe off with one of your
favorite artists outcast and it will do something like based
on what you play a lot, and they're like, all right,
let's switch gears. Here's some Vietnamese Christmas music and you're like, uh,
all right, but I don't know if that was the
vibe I was looking for, but cool, so yeah, but

(01:04:01):
shout out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
The AI DJs all around the world.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
And it's just another piece of media that I do like,
is I'm a big fan of the game Ghost of Tsushima,
and today there was an announcement trailer for the follow
up called Ghost of Yote, and.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
It looks fucking really good.

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
But I'm preparing myself for troll backlash because the main
character is a woman, and inevitably people would be like,
women can't do Samurai sword.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
But yeah, the fucking trailer looks great.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
So anyone who is a fan of Ghost of Tushima
check that trailer out because it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Looks pretty cool. You can find me on Twitter at
Jack Underscore O'Brien. Like a couple tweets, We'll just go
with this one. Cybershell at Cybershell tweeted this section of
Jim Carrey's Wikipedia article cracks me up. Then I'm just
going to read a paragraph from Jim Carrey's Wikipedia article.
In April twenty twenty two, Carrie announced that he was

(01:04:52):
considering retirement from the film industry, explaining I have enough,
I've done enough, I am enough. When I asked if
he would come back, his response was, it depends if
the Angels bring some sort of script that's written in
gold ink that says to me that it's going to
be really important for people to see. I might continue
down the road, but I'm taking a break. In February

(01:05:14):
twenty twenty four, it was announced that Carrie would reprise
his role as Doctor Robot and Sonic the Hedgehog three
now trailer. Yeah that was wild. Yeah. Oh my kids
are fuck they're ready psyched for Sonic the Hedgehog three. Unfortunately.
You can find us on Twitter at daily Zeikeeist, where
at the Daily es i Guist on Instagram, we have

(01:05:36):
Facebook fan page and a website, Daily zeikeist dot com,
where we post our episodes and our foot note when
we link off to the information that we talked about
in today's episode, as well as a song that we
think you might enjoy. Hey, Miles, is there a song
that you think people might enjoy?

Speaker 3 (01:05:51):
Hey, it's your Spotify DJ, and I think you should
listen to one of the biggest songs of the summer,
million Dollar Baby by my boy Tommy Richmond. Though it's
a song that I think we should go out on
if you like. I was just listening to some new
jab best who's like, you know, obviously one of the
most like iconic beat makers from Japan and really kicked
off like the chill beat scene like the interstitials of

(01:06:11):
like Adult Swim. You know, Samurai Shamploo is on that soundtrack.
And there's another Japanese producer I stumbled upon called Pigeon
Dust and also has a very like similar vibe which
is really like enjoyable, jazzy sort of sample beats, easy
to listen to. It's called nothing but Jazz Loops and
artist is Pigeon Dust.

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
All right, we will. I don't I don't like the
idea of pigeon dust because I've been hails fuite a
bit of it living in New York City. But yeah,
pigeon dander, so anyways, but go listen to that and
enjoy it. The Daily zeitgeis is the production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.

(01:06:53):
That's gonna do it for us this morning. We're back
this afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we'll
talk to you all then five