Mailbag #11: Someone To Tell Us How To Be

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike Rugnetta (00:08):
Friends, hello, and welcome to NeverPost's
jingle bell jingle bell jinglebell mailbag twenty twenty five
in which we respond to listeneremails, comments, voicemails,
and voice messages about oursegments. A surprising number of
missives this round delivered bythe mailman. Though they mostly
appear to be poorly writtenletters with awful handwriting

(00:31):
requesting things like pop guns,Lego sets, and puppies addressed
to some guy who definitely doesnot work here. Beginning to
think there may have been a mixup at the post office. Anyways,
we're only a small Internetshow.
We're gonna see what we can doabout all of these puppy
requests. I'm your host, MikeRugnetta. Joining me here today

(00:51):
in order of how likely I thinkit is that they may have gotten
their tongue frozen to aflagpole as a child decreasing.

Hans Buetow (00:59):
Oh. Okay. So most likely first.

Oh. Based entirely upon geography, never
post senior producer HansButeau. Yeah.

My geography is cold. It was nine degrees
yesterday, max. It's beensnowing a lot recently. I live
in the Twin Cities, and I grewup here. So, yeah, absolutely.
I have frozen here's I'm not

frozen my tongue too.

Is the flagpole? But you know how well,
especially when you're a kid, Iwas gonna say, you know how
accidentally you lick yourzipper on your jacket once in a
while. I mean, you don't. Butwhen you're a kid, you do. When
you're

a kid, you absolutely do your thing.

You you huddle yeah. Exactly. Yes.

Georgia Hampton (01:39):
Huddle your Sure.

Sure. Middle is exactly what you're

talking about.

Yes. And then your tongue, like, glances against in
its 16 below, and all of

a sudden no longer a glance.

Yeah. Yeah. All of a sudden, you're stuck to your
zipper. That has happened Nextto

in the roster, based again entirely upon
geography, friend of the show,Meagle Janardan.

Meghal Janardan (01:57):
Yeah. I don't think my tongue has ever frozen
against anything, but I havebeen slashed by ice. Woah.
Slashed by ice. Sleddingaccident.
Oh. Classic.

Let the audience know that Meagle made a motion
indicating that she got thecoolest, most badass injury in
the world.
An ice cut across the face.
Never post producer GeorgiaHampton.

Okay. So I think I literally have done
this. Like, I have a vividmemory of that specific feeling
of my tongue being sucked tosomething that's, like, very
strong, and having to figure outhow to free myself and the panic
of, like,
uh-oh, the consequences of my actions.

And finally, never post executive producer
Jason Oberholtzer.

Jason Oberholtzer (02:46):
I would never do such a thing.

And I know that.
Two watts.

Two My entire life, I've been in a climate
where that was available to me,and yet I have decided to make a
better choice every time it wason offer. Wow. Okay.

And that's why Jason's the EP of the show,
folks.

Mike, have you had such a thing happen?

Oh, god. Yes. Absolutely. Oh, wow. Oh.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I mean,

I would just wander around my grandmother's
house in Boston during thisduring the Boston winters and
just, you know, lick every pieceof metal I could possibly find.

That's what

I'm talking about. Mike's

a very lingual four word. It's how Mike engages with
a lot of the world.

Heard about this one guy in Connecticut who
refused to, and I was like,well, I gotta maintain balance
in the universe.

So Yeah. Have you ever considered making a
better choice?

You know? No.

Good.

Anyways, let's make a podcast.

Yeah. Speaking of making bad choices,
we've got a lot of mail. I'dlike to start us out like we
normally do with some responsesto the previous mailbag and the
subjects that came up there. Andas a reminder, everybody, there
are many ways to get in touchwith us if you wanna be a part
of these mailbags and look tothe show notes for all of them.
So I have one email inparticular responding to some of

(04:04):
the chatting you were doing lastmailbag that I thought was
particularly relevant in theholiday season.
We're gonna do some spiritualstuff, gang.

You know, we have we have joked in the past that
this is a religious podcast. Andthen have joked that the more
that we make that jokeinternally, the closer it gets
to being weirdly kind of true.Mhmm.

Well, I got an email for you, bud. We're
getting close. This comes fromAlex Friedman. I've been
thinking about emailing the showfor some time because I love it.
I'm a member, and because I'm arabbi.
Oh. The last reason makes senseonly because Never Post was
deeply influential to me and tothe high holiday sermon I just

(04:44):
gave a week or so ago. Oh. Ispoke about Addictive
Technologies, Neil Postman, andfocusing on local things you can
actually influence over thingsthat are just designed to get
you angry and impotently engagedor enraged. Oh.
I thought that might be tooboring to be worth an email, but
then Mike mentioned in thelatest mailbag episode that he

(05:05):
loves Rhode Island, and I'm inProvidence.

I this is only proving me more right that
Providence that, yeah, RhodeIsland rules. Yeah.

I know y'all are inclined to think
politically about solutions tocrisis of the social Internet,
but I'm a rabbi, at least inpart because I believe that
religious institutions have acrucial role to play. They are,
by definition and necessity,local. They are one of the last
places, though this is becomingless true in some places and
ways, where people of differentpolitics and economic
backgrounds come togetherregularly in common purpose, and

(05:37):
they are a bastion of communalmeaning making in a world that
wants to teach us we are meantonly to consume alone and be
angry. Mhmm. He concludes, I'mhappy to send the sermon along
if you want to read it.
I hope this note finds you well.It does and I do, so please send
it along.

Yeah. I would love to read that. Please send
it along.

Yeah, please. That sounds awesome.

Incredible. So what do we

think about the role of a religious
institution as one of the lastplaces where people of different
political and economicbackgrounds come together in
common purpose? Wasn't thatsupposed to be the Internet?

Interesting. Mean, I wonder the degree to
which this is true on the largerscale. Like, I don't actually
know, but it is extremelyheartening to read that it is at
least true in some places.

Yeah. Yeah. I do think there's very few in in
world places. Sorry.
Oh, no. It's not it's,

you know, in universe locations.

In universe. Yeah.
Canonical. Is this church canon? They say,
Chad. This reminded me there'san another conversation I've
been following online right nowabout movie theaters, kind of in
a a sort of similar way of thisspace in our real lived world
where we are gathering togetherfor a shared goal, in the case

(07:00):
of movie theaters. And I imaginein the case of religious
institutions, the idea beingthat you are not allowed to be
on your phone, that there arevery few places left where that
is explicitly understood.
And in the things I've seen,movie theaters obviously fall
under that category, though manypeople do not follow that. Mhmm.
And I imagine the same is truefor religious institutions.

I think it's yeah. There's, like, relatively
few places that you go wherethere is some percentage of the
group of people that is therehas a strong idea about how
everybody is supposed to behavewhile they're there and enforces
that.

Yes.

It's one of the reasons I love metal and punk
rock shows. Because when someonegets out of line, there's a big
group of people there who willvery gently, but very firmly say

Mhmm.

We don't behave that way here. It's not what
this is for.

Yes. Do you think a classroom will fall into
that?

That's a good question. I and I wonder if the
answer is different pre and postdevice ban, which is really sort
of sweeping the nation at thisvery moment.

Mhmm. It's almost like we have a natural
inclination to desire somestructure and authority around
us at times.

I mean It

can be nice. It can

be nice.
That's not very girl boss slay.
We gotta take our medicine sometimes. Yeah.

But interesting about that comment is that it
implies that having a devicearound you is anti structure in
some way, where I would arguethat having a phone on you is
following a different set ofrules. Like Yes. The people who
want you to hold your phone allthe time and want to be online,

(08:46):
and that's a differentenvironment with its own rules.
It just clashes with a movietheater, a church Yes. A
synagogue, what have you.

Yeah. Yeah. It is in some ways in, like,
conflict that you're walkingaround with a social compact in
your pocket that's verydifferent from the spaces you
move between

Yes. That have

different social compacts.

Yeah. Like it's not just that it's different,
it's that it's like directly inopposition to those spaces.

Well, because they're both kind of asking the
same thing, which is that theywant you to be here. Yeah. They
just happen to be co located andat odds.

Mhmm. We got some responses to the segment I
worked on on New Luddism. One ofthem from a friend of the show,
Talia. Talia wrote in, what agreat episode. Love your work,
Meagle.
Thank you. It just so happenedthat Jathan Sadowski was holding
a Luddite tribunal at the localpublic library last night. So,
of course, I had to mosey downand have a gander. Although the

(09:43):
analysis and antics were fun,the library had risk assess
smashing things and found it,well, risky. Instead, they
commissioned, quote, Enochshredder, unquote, to shred
paper icons of the technology wedeem smash able.

Amazing. That is suspicious.

I'll put it on.

Fun little tautological knots aside, I
guess the event didn't delveinto the questions I feel most
strongly about, and these werethe ones I think this episode
tackled. Like, generally, one ofthe most important questions to
me is, can you even smash avirtual machine? There
definitely feels like there isan important moment going on in
which capital is trying to makeits instruments less contingent

(10:23):
on labor. Maybe more clearlystated, are they making the
machines networked and virtualwith protective intention? Can
tools of this nature ever bedemocratized?
I would question, is it reallyvirtual? I I I think that that
maybe is something that a lot ofcompanies are having us think is

(10:44):
that, you know, like, the cloudis in the cloud when a lot of
technology is not there there'sa physical aspect to all the
technology that we engage with.We just kind of are being more
and more removed from it. Yes. Ialso think that, you know, if
we're not gonna go mosey our waydown to a data center, maybe

(11:04):
another way to look at smashingvirtual technology is through
boycotting.

It reminds me, Meaghel, of of what they were
talking about, of whatespecially Mohammed was talking
about in the interview about allthe different types of sabotage
that exist.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Mohammed and Emily were talking
about that it's not always aboutsmashing a physical piece of
technology. You know, there'sother ways to resist and kind of
break down the technology eventhrough using it.

You have to smash the Epson printer in your heart
first.

Oh my god.

Next up, we got an email from Julia Fisher in
response to the episode I workedon about my attention span. This
episode made me think about myown relationship with my phone
usage and particularly shortform video. In about twenty
twenty two, I was halfway acrossthe road when I realized that I
had been using TikTok withoutenjoying it for months. I took

(12:01):
that moment to delete the appand have never gone back. I
could feel how the app had itshooks in my brain, and I knew
that I had to remove myself fromthe cycle there and then.
I am still annoyed that amedium, which I think has so
much potential for reallyinteresting and unique
expressions, been used as a toolto squeeze the hours out of my
day like a juicer. I'm ashamedto say that in the past year, I

(12:22):
started going at Instagram reelsinstead.

Oh my god. I saw. The freaks.

Home of the freaks.

I feel similar. I could give various arguments
as to why I've gone back, butultimately, it's the same brain
hooks from a different app. Onething I've noticed with
Instagram though is that one ofmy core themes my algorithm
keeps returning me to isproductivity. I believe it
started from a few videos abouthow to do good academia, which
makes sense since I've recentlyreturned to university for a
master's. And, of course, Metacould consult their

(12:53):
constellation of data about meto find out the second I
submitted my application.
From those academia videos, Ihave then been shown a number of
videos similar to the episode,which are about how to rebuild
your attention. Mhmm. I amfascinated by the process of an
app showing me videos, whichacknowledge that the experience
is not pleasant and then showingtechniques of how to stop using

(13:15):
it. It's hardly new for systemsto present their own critiques,
but seeing people talk inpractical terms about how to
stop does feel different. It allmakes me wonder about how the
future of digital systems willbe built on co opted critique.
Could Instagram just be settingup a smokescreen by showing me
these videos, showing me the wayout to trick me into thinking I

(13:36):
can leave whenever I want? Oh.Woah. You should definitely
subscribe to the Neverpost RSSfeed and continue to listen to
this podcast.

I'm trying to

can learn how to stop

listening to podcasts. But just listen to
this podcast.

Could Instagram be showing you the way
out to trick you into thinkingyou can leave whenever you want?
We know the answer, and we'lltell you soon later on. Never
post.

After these messages. After

these messages. If you're a member,
you'll get access to that conversation
early.

Should we should we just start printing out
transcripts and mailing them topeople? Is that the better
option? Finish an episode. Dothe transcripts.

Not to be confused with a newspaper. Oh.

Uh-oh. Mike accidentally invented
newspapers. Newspapers.

Interesting. Interesting. You know, this
podcast industry thing isdoesn't really seem to be
working out for the world. Let'sjust go and check. How is the
news publishing industry doing?

Oh, Mike. I already checked.
It's awesome. It's so good.
Oh my god. I do have to I have to yell about the
TikTok to Instagram reelpipeline.

Where where what's the state

of it now? Because it used to be, like,
TikTok had everything first andit was cool, then Instagram was
boomer y and had it late. Butnow, like okay. Still that?

Yes. Oh,

still that.

Oh, I'm just gonna

know TikTok seems like it's all commercials,
and Instagram seems like it'sall sickos.

Instagram reels, at least in my experience in
comparison to using TikTok, isfull of fucking weirdos. Oh,
okay. Strange. Like, the amountof just truly bizarre stuff that
I see, it's is just mountainsmore of it on Instagram than I
ever saw on TikTok.

I do wonder how long it will take for the the
ads, the endless advertising toget to Reels because I do still
feel like TikTok I I generallyavoid Reels because I'm like,
listen, if I'm going to bedrinking straight from the hose
of this kind of content, I'mgonna do it once.

Like it to be like it to be water and not
chlorine or

Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. And, like, I have a lot of a a few
friends in my life who genuinelyhave been like, yeah. I'm so
glad that I never got on TikTok.And I'm like, diva, Let's check
our Instagram DMs. How manytimes are you looking at

TikTok is on you. Yeah. This email does it just
makes me think about I mean, andand Julia even acknowledges
this, the old idea that it'slike, any capitalism is able to
subsume any criticism of it andis able to host it and profit
from it. Yeah. So it's like, youknow, Penguin House makes tons
of money from printing KarlMarx's books.
Yeah. It's just how it works.And it's like, you know, the job

(16:29):
of the technology is to figureout what you want and give it to
you. And what a lot of peoplewant right now is to figure out
how to spend less time online.So yeah, it is deeply ironic,
but also very very true andmakes all kinds of sense that
Instagram will be like, well,here's endless content about
spending less time online.

Yeah. There is also this new what's in my bag
video that I've seen where it'speople packing, like, you know,
putting stuff in their purse foractivities that are offline, and
they're making content aboutputting a book in their purse.

Folks, we're gonna win. We're gonna we're
everything's gonna be okay. It'sjust gonna take a little while.

Did they start that day by yawning and
tossing off their

sheets 10 feet away from their phone? Yes. God.
Well, I

think one thing that's interesting about this is
where Julia figured it out. Ilove the detail that no one has
commented on. I was halfwayacross a road. Realized I

had been using TikTok

TikTok without enjoying it for months. I took
that moment to delete the appand have never gone back.

I hope it.

Stepping on to the far curb and thinking
immediately, oh, damn, dog.

We all remember that moment. If you if you
remember the moment that you hadsuch a realization, tell us what
it is. Tell us where you werestanding and which road you were
crossing, when you decide whenit hit you.

Don't tell us

Oh god.

Out of the road first.

Yeah. Yeah. Please. Traffic.

But send that to us. Thank you, Julia, for this.

Ben Smith sent in something about my segment
about recipes as vibe posting.

Ben Smith (18:08):
Hi, Neverpost. This is less of a question or comment
and more of just an excited,what a wonderful confluence of
people thinking about this topicslash excitedly just sort of
waving my arms in the air aboutthis the entire time I was
listening. But Ruby Tando fromBake Off, but also who is just a

(18:28):
fantastic food writer in her ownright, literally had a book
coming out this week called AllConsuming. The cover is very
good, but the first section ofit, because I have devoured it
like so much of her writing, isall about the process of writing
recipes now. And why are all ofthe descriptions of them like
cheesy green beans and thingslike that.

(18:51):
And just sort of like the natureof very Marshall McLuhan y, the
medium is the message, and whatdoes it mean that the medium has
now changed? And I just wantedto excitedly share so that it is
also on your radar. Thank youfor a fantastic show.

Ben, I just looked this up, and I'm ordering
it right now.

I love this. Love this.

The it also it would behoove me to mention
specifically Caleb Herron'sinterpretation of this, which is
the, like, just a a greencrunch. Like, a a healthy green
crunch. Like, it's Is there a

name for that? For that, like God.

Maybe I need to do another segment that's
specifically food about this.

In? It's enraging.

It's so it's so wild. Like, I just think we need
a little green, a little crunch,a little

Like, it's every time you

do this.
But it is, like, there's something so it's
like, picking up, like, amosquito bite where, like, even
saying it, I'm like, there'ssomething evil that I'm, like,
taking pleasure But, yes, thankyou so much, Ben. This is
awesome. I am so going to readthis. This looks amazing. Also,
cover is awesome.

Eric Moore wrote in about my Brain Rot segment.
Eric writes, I was listening tothe Mailbag episode, and I was
struck by what my mother used tocall the cosmic two by four when
I heard your discussion aboutJay McGee's letter on
WikiLeaping. I'm a professionalindependent trivia host, and
what they were talking about isvery nearly my initial
brainstorming process when itcomes time for me to write a new

(20:21):
show every week, which got methinking, am I just a paid brain
rot shepherd? Uh-oh. I thinktrivia and brain rot have a sort
of rhombus slash quadrilateralrelationship.
In that trivia, begrudgingly tomy field, is a type of
fulfilling brain rot in themodern sense, but especially

(20:41):
when compared to AI slop brainrot, which at most generous is
probably a highly irregulartrapezoid in this metaphor.
While I think brain rot is awell understood and accurate
description of the umbrella termfor activities that are
capitalistically useless, butpassively to semi passively
enjoyable, I think where some ofthat distinction of fulfillment
and where it loops into being ahealthy thing pejoratively

(21:02):
called brain rot comes in is ina, as Jay remarked, was this
brain rot designed by humanminds? B, are you engaging with
it because you want to and notthat it was served to you
algorithmically slashsystematically? And c, is this
something that can be shared andcommunally experienced? Trivia
is at least as old as theclassics etymologically, but

(21:23):
probably even older because evenstanding on the stage, there is
nothing quite so enjoyably humanas being surrounded by other
humans fighting about answers toquestions no one ever made you
learn the answers to, and thatyou don't need to remember and
utilize afterwards.
Viva la brain rot that actuallyhelps you enjoy living and being
wonderfully useless if only fora moment. PS, AI is extremely

(21:45):
bad at writing competent triviaquestions, so my brain rot job
is safe for the time being. Imean, I think like I don't know.
I'm so maybe increasinglyresistant to calling anything
that doesn't leave you with akind of device related hangover
afterwards, any form of brainrot. That like, for me, rot now

(22:11):
has, like, a very particularfeeling associated to it.
And it is when I put my phonedown and I, like, re check into
the world, and I'm like, oh,woah.

Hold on.

Like, you just woke up from a really long nap and
you'll

go Oh, yeah. You feel sick and angry. Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah. Stupid. Like a you're, like, kinda
sweaty and angry. You went

to bed.

It was bright, and now it's dark, and you missed
dinner, and what

the hell? Stop. I had stuff I needed to do. Yeah.
And so I'm like, if you're I'mopen to the idea that, like, you
can do things in space withpeople, and then afterwards be
like, oh.
And like, have a kind of socialhangover. But like,
fundamentally, is that brain rotor is that just, you know,

(23:02):
social anxiety? Like, I think ifyou're with people, there's
gotta be something justfundamentally additive and pro
social about it, if certaincharacteristics of the scenario
are given. That is just sodifferent from sitting on your
phone and like, doing nothing ordoing something that sort of is

(23:22):
justified through the idea ofdoing nothing.

I'm really enchanted by this description of
trivia as information that younever learned intentionally.
Because there's something Ithink, comparatively true about
that with memes, and I can say,and they were roommates, and you
know what comes next, and youknow where that's from.
And they were roommates.

(23:46):
Yeah. There's something about that that's
kinda sweet that is sort ofcommunal, but it kind of I feel
like in a way, it feels the mostthat way in the real world with
other people.

And I think there's still a big distinction
between, like I'm gonna talk ingeneralities here, and like what
I'm about to say doesn't applyto say, like, people who are
gonna go on Jeopardy! Or likeDon Caldwell from Know Your
Meme. Watch yourself, counselor.The idea of trivia is that you,
just through the way that youlive your life and the sort of,

(24:21):
like, you know, who you are, youare in possession of information
that is at that particularmoment and perhaps no other
moment immediately useful toanswer a question. Whereas I see
a lot of people using theirdevices, being online, scrolling
TikTok, scrolling Instagram,etcetera etcetera, like, using
the excuse of being like, well,I gotta know what's going on out
there.
Like, I gotta sort of, like,actively dig through this pile

(24:45):
of stuff and like kinda hurtmyself a little bit in the
process Mhmm. So that I knowwhat's going on. I think unless
you are a professional triviaperson, the people who play
trivia most regularly, and Ihave a lot of friends who do,
they're not like studying. Butthey are studious people.

My takeaway from all the responses we've
gotten to your brain rot segmentis, I think to notice that
people have a very difficulttime defining what productive
uses of their time are as soonas they are asked to so without
a capitalistic framework.

Yeah.

Yeah. Everyone answers that a little
differently, or like makes alittle bit of a different
deflection on the answer, as ifthey cannot just wholeheartedly
say, I enjoy doing this with mytime, and so I do.

Yeah. And and even though it makes me no money
or whatever, like, don't feelguilty about that.

Yeah.

So with that, let's take a little break so I can go
check my texts, my TikTok, myInstagram, all the things.
Because I don't know whathappened in the last twenty
minutes, but

Gotta go make sure. Maybe it could have been

some guy. Gotta yeah. So sorry. We'll be right
back.

Welcome back everyone. I hope you enjoyed
that break wherein you looked ata different screen and waited
for us to come back. Next up, wehave a response to a segment I
did over the summer with HannahPaivo about charts in the early
nineteen hundreds, and the waysin which charting came from the

(26:29):
cartographers of the world,historians, and the academics
into the greedy little hands ofbusiness. And what that meant
about the dissemination of dataand its magical powers of
prognostication. I have notheard this response at all, but

(26:50):
Hans assures me I will enjoy it.
So Hans, show me what I'm instore for.

We got a message, an audio message from Talia, who
we heard from a little bitearlier in the in the episode.
They sent us this prettyincredible thing with the tag.
They're all good segments,Brent, but I have listened to
the charts one like four times.

Talia (27:12):
Hey, Inverpost. This is Talia. I'm coming to you today
from a far noisier place than Inormally do. It's Friday
afternoon in the hot lab, whichis where I work, which means
it's time for the end of weekmonitoring sweep. And I have

(27:32):
been thinking a lot about theformalism thing that Jason
discussed and how much I havegrown to have after working in
HOT Labs for the last six orseven years, a sense of
formalism based on the sensor,which is a radioactive sensor,

(27:56):
which you potentially can hearin the background.

I was wondering what that was.

Yep. The

Talia (28:00):
afternoon monitoring sweep is to check whether or not
the laboratory is clean and safeand if everything that should be
active or hot, as we like tocall it, is in its rightful
place. So rest assured, I'm aprofessional and

I know what I'm doing.

Talia (28:16):
Don't worry if

it happens to sound noisy Okay.

Talia (28:19):
With chirps over here. But I thought that this would be
a nice submission for the chartsthat Jason requested as this is
a sensor that moves through thechart of space in the laboratory
in the jerk. And I think the wayin which these trips have come
to mean something to me, butpotentially don't mean anything

(28:40):
to you, is is interesting as adiscussion on, like, that that
kind of idea of, like, how theform becomes or starts to mean
something the more you interactwith it. Anyway, I'm gonna stop
talking and just do the sweep.Okay.

So this message goes on for another

Oh, Talia, get out of there. No.

Another five minutes and it goes a lot of
places. Talia's really doing thework over that. Let me play you
just a couple of moments thathappen within the next four
minutes of Talia's life.

Can I just read one one thing, Hans, before you
start it? Yeah. Okay. A hot labis a secure shielded room in
hospitals or research facilitiesfor safely handling, preparing,
and storing radioactivematerials used in nuclear
medicine and therapy.

Talia, just Okay.

Our first radioactive audio clip.

So apparently, they can just use their phone in
there because this is these arethese are two examples of what
we get later.

Is that good?

I don't think so. They are a professional.

Are a professional.

Hearing that sound, does that feel good?

No. It does not. Something about the form of
it.

I don't think I like charts.

I'm scared. I'm scared. So by the end of

it, Talia gets into a little bit calmer area.

This is even scarier to be seen. Yeah.

I embraced. Is that good?

Who is that? Don't know. Okay.

Again, Talia is a professional.

A secret third thing.

Talia (30:53):
Okay. Well, that's all the serious stuff done. As
always, loving the show.

Bizarrely stressful.

Why is it?

What is the part of my, like, animal brain that's
like, that's bad. That's justbad.

That's bad.
Get out of there.

I cannot overemphasize how much everyone
was fidgeting and moving aroundframe that entire time. Nobody
was comfortable.

Oh, that's also only segments of it. I'm it
literally go it's four minuteslong of them just

going through the room. That is truly
Incredible. Wild.

Speaking of unsettling and alarming sounds,
Adam, sent in a note about mysegment with Luis Lopez on Burnt
Toast Audio, which if you do notrecall, was this audio trend
where people intentionally peaktheir audio and just blow out

(32:03):
the sound.

Adam (32:05):
On the opposite end of mic clipping, I've noticed this
thing where people will movetheir face away from a mic to
yell, and it just has a veryparticular vibe to it that
creates this mixture of bothyelling and whispering as
they're no longer speakingdirectly into the mic, but
they're still talking at a loudvolume. I feel like I see it a
lot when people are makingcomments that are either open

(32:27):
secrets or very privatehush-hush secrets. I couldn't
find any good analysis aboutthis online, so I wanted to see
what you all could dig up.Thanks. This is truly one of my
favorite podcasts, and I lookforward to every new episode.

Oh, thanks, Adam.

Thanks, Adam. Okay. This I'm obsessed with
this because I know exactly whatyou're talking about.

Can you do it?

Yeah. So it'd be kind of like, I'm talking to
you over here.
Yeah.
And then I move away
Okay.
And in interact with the space I'm in more
pointedly.

And while you're back there, you talk about how,
like, someone is cheating ontheir significant other? Like,
is that

Yeah. Is that,

like, the gossip you enter the gossip zone?
You're like,

so this celebrity has done something
normal and innocuous.

The smash cut, probably.

Not that we would ever forget the terrible
and horrible crimes they'vecommitted.

Smash cut back.

So anyway, like, it's yeah. It's

this Sure. Yeah.

It's this, like, analog

It's like the Greek chorus almost.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's this analog way of
cutting. It's an emphasis onwhat you're saying in the
opposite, which is interesting.

It's it's sort of posits, like, you know, like the
whisper is like a veryparticular kind of emphasis that
it's close and a change in vocaltimbre. Like, you know, you
can't really, the only way thatyou can hear this is like, you
really have to get in there. Butlike, this sort of does the
opposite where it's like, itforces you to yell, but it still

(34:01):
sort of like enters this wholeother space.

Well and I think there's the an implication
there that it's like, I'myelling and no one can hear me.

Oh, interesting.

Like, no.
I didn't think about that.
Like, I'm saying this thing, like, don't
you under like, it's sort ofyou, like, slapping your hands
against the glass being liketrying to warn

you. Yeah.

Yeah. I've tried to warn you. Don't like,
don't you see I'm yelling and noone can hear me.

One of the things that I teach students when we
work on audio only things and Italk about writing for audio is
that grammar, as it is generallytaught, is a written person's
game Yeah. And not a reading ortalking person's game. We do not
talk with proper grammar, and wenever will. If you wanna sound

(34:44):
natural, ignore grammar. Ofcourse, don't because you need
to make it legible when you readit and things, but this feels
like another entry into agrammar

of audio.

Oh, a 100%.

I agree with that.

Because there's also kind of a like, it's a
parenthetical almost.

Yeah. Like this what you're saying so much more.
It is a parenthetical, but it'slike a nuanced parenthetical.

Yeah. Well, because it's not it's not just
necessarily, like, I'm yellingand no one can hear me. It's
almost like I'm yelling. I'm farenough away from the mic where
there's almost this implicationthat, like, I don't know you can
hear me. Like, whereas I'm righthere right now, and I know that
you can hear me.
I'm right by my mic. I amintentionally recording my
voice. Whereas if I move fourfeet back, there's this sort of

(35:29):
implicit feeling of, like, maybeI'm saying this and I don't know
that you can hear me.

I wonder how much of it is derived from the
practical concerns of, Yeah.These are things that you want
to shout because they frustrateyou, but that would make the
audio sound bad, so you justmove away a little bit.

But with burnt toast, you'd be looking for
that.

Yeah.

Like, staying close to your mic and blowing it out
according to Georgia's thesis isactually a thing you could do,
and it would mean something.

Yeah. There is something this phenomenon of,
like, either intentionally,like, okay, come closer, come
closer, and then whispering intoyour mic or, like, going back
reminds me of, like, millennialsuse of jump cuts Yes. Yeah. And
the videos that they make.

Sure.

Mhmm. It feels very millennial to

me. Uh-oh. That well, that's interesting to me
because I feel like themillennial jump cut is much more
effort Because in that case, youare actually cutting the video,
like, are going in after thefact and cutting it. Whereas
this is such a, like to me, thisfeels very very close to the

(36:36):
medium that you see it in, atleast that I see it in, which is
more like short form videoTikTok, that kind of stuff,
vertical video, where the ideais that you can just make a
video right now. I don't havetime to do all this stuff.
So I'm just going to get thismessage across as quickly as I
can.
Yes. Adam,
this is so interesting. I could write an
entire other, segment aboutthis, and maybe I will.

(36:59):
No. Wait. Hold on.
Hold on.
And maybe I will. A

little while ago, I did a segment about how
artificial intelligence ishelping contribute to the
aesthetic of new Americanfascism. And Dan wrote us an
email, and Dan says, sincelistening to your episode about
AI and new American fascism, Ican't stop thinking about how
the Fasc Bros' latest obsessionof AI contrasts with and
contradicts their previousobsession with cryptocurrency.

(37:28):
Specifically, how the supposedadvantage of crypto, its ability
to substitute fiat governmentbanking with cryptographic proof
of work runs completely counterto the inherent premise of AI.
What is at its core evidence ofa lack of work. So much of the
hype of crypto seems nominallypredicated on the belief that
the proof of work equalsscarcity, and therefore

(37:50):
legitimacy as a currency.
But AI throws out that notionthat proof of work matters at
all, insisting that only the endresult is of any importance to
the audience. The fact thatadherence to one of these
technologies are typicallyadherence to the other belies
crypto's stated necessity. Ifthe ultimate goal of AI is to
get work without any effort,then perhaps predicating an

(38:12):
entire economic system oncomputational work isn't the
democratic decentralized antiestablishment tool we were told
it would be. Perhaps even it'sjust another tool for
speculating, scams, and buyingsketchy drugs on the dark web.
Okay.
Listen. As someone with friendswho buy a lot of sketchy drugs
on the dark web, like, thatpart, let's, you know, let's let

(38:32):
people buy their sketchy drugs.Everything else, hell yeah, Dan.

Well, in truth, you should be buying sketchy
drugs from your own

community. Lately.

Sores. You. You go You should be going

to Providence. Yeah. I mean, I think that this
is a set of people who generallyis interested in one thing and
it's political expediency. Andso they will do whatever is
politically expedient in anygiven scenario, and they're
doing the politically expedientthing in both of these
scenarios. The fact that thosetwo things don't necessarily
line up to form a coherent Idon't even wanna call it

(39:08):
ideology.
A coherent line of reasoning islike, Dan, you have given this a
thousand times more thought thanany of the people who are
interested in both of thesetechnologies.

Yeah. Yeah. Think the center of the Venn
diagram between the two is whatis an easy answer for how can I
receive things from the worldwhen I have absolutely nothing
of value to give the world?

Yeah. Yeah. I guess in that way, it's very
coherent.

Yeah.
So we got a very interesting comment in, of
all places, our subreddit, whichif you did not know this
existed, you should go tor/neverpost and join the
community there. Make your voiceheard. Tell us your thoughts. We
are constantly reading it.Sometimes we might even comment

(39:56):
in there.

We're in there.

We're in there, and I was in there when I found
this comment. So, frequent, chatparticipant in our, live
streams, which if you'd alsolike to, see our beautiful faces
there, it istwitch.tv/theneverpost. User

(40:19):
nondeterminist system wrote areally interesting comment on
our subreddit about my episodethat came out in October about
digital witchcraft, Etsywitches, and the industry of
witchcraft on the Internet. Andthey write, I had a few quick
thoughts after listening to thisepisode. First, one thing that I

(40:40):
may ruminate on and come backwith a more fleshed out thought
later.
Mahegan Saint Pierre talkedabout acting as an intermediary
between the living and thespirits. It occurred to me that,
for most people, the Internet isa vast ethereal world with
unpredictable agents whose willoften requires interpretation
and intercession. Maybe we neednew kinds of spiritual

(41:02):
intermediaries for our newrealities. Or maybe we're
already trying to think of theInternet as a spiritual place,
and maybe some of our angstabout the current state of the
Internet can be thought of asspiritual. Second, and
relatedly, I'd love to hear morefrom practitioners of other
religions and faith traditionsabout how their beliefs and

(41:22):
practices have been impacted bythe Internet.
Well, Alex Friedman, rabbi whowrote in to us, I'd be very
interested if you have thoughtsabout this. Yeah. Yeah. I do
think this is an interestingidea of looking at our
relationship to the Internet asspiritual. I think it's that's
certainly its own thing.
I don't want to equate theindustry and existence of

(41:45):
witchcraft on the Internet witha broader spirituality about the
Internet. But I do think thereis there is truth in this
feeling that the Internet does,by virtue of it existing through
devices, but not in a particularplace. It's sort of a this vast

(42:07):
endless more conceptual spacethat there is a a desire to
ground it, to understand it, tointerpret it in a way that I
think does feel similar tospiritual practice. There's a
desire to, like, interpret,understand, have people who
interpret it for us who feelmore, like, authorities.

And that's why I have to look at my phone for
fourteen hours every day to makesure that I know enough to guide
people through

the Exactly. Exactly. I was gonna say I do
feel I I worry that us on thiscall I mean, I certainly fall
into that, where I'm like, Igotta I gotta learn so that I
can I can explain? Mhmm.

I would also say that what this made me think
of is how sometimes people havea crisis of faith, where going
to church every week, doing thisthing doesn't feel the same
anymore. It's not they're notgetting what they used to get
out of it. And that makes methink of how I feel about the
Internet. I used to go to theInternet. When I would go
online, I would feel a certainway.

(43:16):
I would frequent certainwebsites, engage in certain
content, whatever. And I'malways almost having a crisis of
faith when it comes to theInternet. I don't feel the same
anymore when I gauge in certaintimes of types of content, and
I'm in certain spaces. And thatmakes me think of how maybe,
yeah, the Internet is kind of aplace that is very similar to,

(43:39):
like, a spiritual practice.

And which is also, like, getting actively
worse. Like, you know Yes. Idon't as I don't participate in
religion too much, so I don'tknow how often that that
happens. It certainly hasfamously happened in a couple
places in The United States overthe last thirty or so years.
But, like, I think that's alsopart of it is that it's like, it
is actually demonstrably gettingless pleasant and harder to use.

(44:03):
Mhmm.

Yeah. Speaking of getting less pleasant and harder
to use, unless you're a member,it's time to hear some ads.
We'll be right back.

Folks, I got good news for us. Finally. Finally,
good news after all those ads.We got a Molly's Corner.

Yes. Yes.

I have no clue what this is. For anybody who is
a new listener, Molly, my wife,occasionally calls in and asks
questions or make statementsthat are completely unrelated to
the show.

Yes. Today, we hear from Molly Underground.

Molly (45:07):
Hi. It's me. I was just getting the m train up town from
Delancey Essex Street. And onething they've done, everything
is install a screen that tellsyou on the m Platform when the f
is coming because it's not inNew York. These are trains that
basically go on the same routethat are on different levels of
the subway platform.

(45:28):
For the years, there's been onestairway between the two
platforms where people wouldeither stand at the top or stand
at the bottom, look out for whenthe train was coming, and then
communicate to strangers to say,come up here or go down there,
and and people would essentiallyshave one or two minutes off
their commute. Very important.But they since they've installed

(45:49):
the screen, now you can stand onthe m platform and see when the
app coming. I assume the same asShu downstairs. And it's just a
bit sad to me, really, because Ilove that I love the forcing
function of having tocommunicate with a stranger to
figure something out in thecity.
And it made me wonder if any ofyou have examples of where,

(46:09):
like, technology has arguablymade your life better. It
actually makes you a little bitsad because maybe it's the right
some kind of human connection orsomething that was pleasurable
to do that took longer than theway you do it now. Anyway, I was
just thinking about that. Sogladly. Know

exactly what Molly's talking about. Is this
clear to everybody what's goingon here?

Yeah. I think so. Yeah. I think so. Two two
different levels of peopletalking to each other about
which train is coming first.

Yeah. And then they put it they put a screen
in. You don't to do thatanymore.

Yeah. Molly trusting the screen is what I'm

not sure

about. Yeah.

I find those screens generally are right
unless they say, hey. I'm ascreen. I'm broken.

Nope. Which is Hey. Often. Often. So maybe No.
Okay. But okay. To her question, does this make
you think of another example?

Absolutely. Something came right to mind
when they installed checkoutkiosks at the library. Oh. I
love talking to our librarians.They're great.

Yeah.

Like, I loved going to the desk and, like,
having a little chat, talkingabout books, and, like, getting
recommended other books. And,like, I sometimes I did have to
wait in line.

Mike, that's a good one because I feel the same way.
I think I'm on record on thisshow saying I don't use self
checkout in lines. Oh,

yeah. Interesting.

And and a similar reason where, like and it's a
similar reason to, like, whatAlex was saying way at the
beginning of this episode, whichis, like, there's certain social
contracts and the fact thatpeople still wear their pajamas
to the store and then can checkout without interacting with a
single person. It leads to thisidea that these spaces are your
living room, and they are not

Bypass by bypassing all of the moments
wherein they may be slightlyjudged.

Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. Why is wearing pajamas
to the store catching straysright

now? Yeah.

Hans is actually a Russian grandma that thinks
that you should have a full faceof makeup and red lipstick every
time

you leave silence. All
of us. Right?
All of us. Yes. All of us doing

that. Yep.

No. I this then makes me think of it's funny
when when I was listening toMolly's Molly's Corner. I wasn't
originally thinking of this, butthe other day, was walking down
the street and I saw a littlerestaurant in my neighborhood
that basically deals entirely inonline orders. Nobody ever goes
in there and sits there. It'sjust picking up or getting

(48:31):
DoorDash or whatever.
I have certainly been someonewho does this, but it does make
me sad to see entire restaurantsthat are just completely empty,
have all the trappings of aregular restaurant, have seats,
have chairs of everything, andnobody's ever there because
they're never going to be therebecause this has been determined
to be a takeout restaurant.

There's an incredible thread on the I
believe the Bed Stuy, theneighborhood that I live in
subreddit, where someone islike, hey, where are the good
Indian food restaurants wherepeople actually sit down in the
restaurant Yes. And eat in therestaurant? I want I wanna go. I
have a first date coming up orsomething like that, and I wanna

(49:12):
go, and I don't want the two ofus. We wanna get Indian food,
but, like, we don't want the twoof us to be the only people in
the restaurant.
Oh, And every single comment islike, oh, this place is really
good. And then people beinglike, you didn't he doesn't
yeah. But it's always empty.

But it's a takeout restaurant.

Yeah. Only just a group of guys on bikes waiting
outside constantly.

Do you think then it's this is kind of part
of the bigger conversation thatabout convenience, and this is
actually the pain ofconvenience?

Yes. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. The destruction of
the sensual world at the thealtar of convenience.
Yeah.

Mhmm.

Jason? Yes? You look like you were gonna say
something. I wanna give you achance before we move on.

I was gonna try to, and I haven't figured
out how to use the altar pivotto land a religious button to
move us on. Okay. Ended at thealtar of convenience.

Sir Suri is mouse in French, and mice inhabit
churches. Church mouse.

Mice are very religious.

This is a well known fact. Mice love Jesus.

All of this is.

Mice love Jesus. Jesus. They're constantly
telling me. Yeah.

And we actually I think like most Ganesha
statues, there is a mouse.

I feel like I missed an entire connective step
in this. Why am I here?

I feel like we should just leave this in and
then just talking about starttalking about one word graffiti.

Blessed are the meat.
Okay. A mouse.
What's the great or not the great mouse
detective. This one

Why are we talking about mice?

What's this? The Jewish

No one tell

Jason. One. That's about mice.

Fievel Goes West is a Jewish movie? Yes. But
he's a cowboy.

Careful. Why are we talking about the cowboy?
That's okay.

How about this? Andy's a cowboy.

There you go.

We got a bunch of one word graffiti mostly from
the subreddit.

Good god. Alright. Yeah, gang. Hey.
Remember when I told you all tostop doing this last time?
Well, you didn't fucking listen,did you? I'm gonna rattle off
some one word graffiti for you,which to be fair, you all were
very good rule followers thistime. Maybe it's because you
listened to an episode of NormalGossip where Mike Rickenetta

(51:30):
talked about being a rulefollower, but you're doing good
this time. Alright. Reddit user,vim dynamo, sent in Souris, s o
u r I s.
And in that thread are a bunchof people talking about this
word that is baffling to me. I'mnot gonna spoil it. You gotta go

(51:51):
to the subreddit and figure outwhat the fuck Cerus is all
about.

It's good. There's a whole discussion. It's
great.

Next up, Vogie sends in p s y c psych.
Psych. On the side of, like, atransformer unit. That's kind of
fun.

With just pigeons and pigeons?

I don't think that's not

a pigeons.

That's are those assumptions? It's
something far more worried.
Those are bushcats. It's

I this image is spooky.

There's a darkness here. Yeah.

If Saff only sends in dong.

Dong.

Dong dong near soup.

Oh, yeah. There's a bunch of I didn't see
that ever.

That just makes it for me. Yeah. Dong near soup.

Campbell's cream of something.

Yeah. Oh, this next one rips so hard.

Todd from Montreal sends sends in and a
little Mario guy with a b on hishat.

I'm gonna say that this barely it is one word,
but, like, maximum effort.

It is a full wall mural

of graffiti. With, like, three d letters.
Carolyn

Thompson from Portland, Oregon sends in queso.
It appears twice. Queso queso,and it's stenciled on the
street. So in a few ways, youare pushing credulity, but I'll
let it in.

And it's yellow. Like queso.

Like queso.

We do like that.

I like that it's also in this very pleasing
triangle.

Like a chip almost. Yeah. Like a tortilla
chip. You know what? Cameron,this is good now.
I'm gonna forgive this beingboth a stencil and the same word
twice.

Wait. What's wrong with the stencil? Yeah.
Why is that a problem?

Jason's the, in charge of He's the decider.
Yeah.

Yep. There's lots of mostly,

we must cater to his whims.

That's so true.

I just feel like spray painting through a
stencil is not quite the spiritof one word graffiti.

Fair enough. Fair enough.

And finally, quirky spirit five nine eight
zero in the subreddit sends in asign that appears to say shit
bottle on it, and one imaginessomeone spray painted something
to change it from what it oncesaid.

There's a whole story. This is less than one
word graffiti. It is peopleadding a single horizontal line
to the signs for a town namedShillbottle.

Uh-huh. Knew it. Yes.

Jason, in fact, two months ago, you responded to
this saying, the purest entry.

Yes. We'll see if

past Jason agrees with the whims of present Jason.

Well, I myself feel like something of a
shit bottle right now. So Ithink that's as good a reason as
any to say, thank you all foryour one word graffiti. You did
much better this time around.I'm proud of you all and my
holiday gift is for the nextmailbag, you can send me two and
only two word graffiti. Oh.

(54:54):
Wow. Thank you all your littleshit bottles out there. See you
next time.

Thanks for listening everybody. Done.

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