The Hardest Thing To Do Is Nothing

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike Rugnetta (00:11):
Friends, hello and welcome to Never Post, a
podcast for and about theInternet. I'm your host Mike
Rugnetta, this intro was writtenon Sunday, March 23 at 11:32PM
eastern, and we have aformidable show for you this
week. First, Georgia goes on ano buy journey where she
attempts to make it nearly threemonths without purchasing new

(00:34):
clothing as per the seventy fiveday hard style challenge. She
talks about her experiences withKyle Checa and host of the
podcast articles of interestAvery Truffelman. Then I talk
with Mike Masnik, founder of thestalwart technology block Tech
Dirt about legislation thatcould be introduced in The US as
soon as this week that wouldsunset section two thirty of the

(00:58):
Communications Indecency Act, 26words which, quote, paved the
way for the modern Internet.
Now why would anybody wanna getrid of those? And also typing
tests. But first, let's talkabout a few of the things that
have happened since the lasttime you heard from us. I have
four stories for you this week.Boston Celtic ska mainstay, the

(01:23):
dropkick Murphys, were notbanned from x for comments
frontman Ken Casey made on stagecritical of the US
administration.
Over the weekend, a post wentviral claiming that the
Northeast punk band rebootedfrom the social site after Casey
pointed out a concert goerwearing a red MAGA hat and joked
that Elon Musk's black dark MAGAvariant is the quote, Elon Musk

(01:46):
true Nazi edition. On hernewsletter, the handbasket,
Marissa Cabas reports that thepodcast Midas Touch shared a
clip of the joke which wasshared again by an account
claiming that it had led to theband's suspension, but it had
not. Cabas confirmed quote, thedropkick Murphy's account was
banned as early as June 2024,but regardless at least seven

(02:09):
news stories centering on thisclaim had been published by the
morning after the first posts.Don't believe everything you
read on the internet, I guess. Xhas, however, seemingly
suspended accounts connectedwith Turkish opposition in the
midst of large scale protests inIstanbul following the arrest of
Ekrem Imamoglu, mayor of thecity and presidential candidate

(02:32):
running against Recep TayyipErdogan.
PCMag reports that mostsuspended accounts quote,
belonged to grassroots activistswith followers in the low tens
of thousands who shared protestlocations for students.
According to X's transparencyreport, they continue, it
complied with 68% of Turkey'sgovernment requests to take down

(02:54):
content in the second half oftwenty twenty four. Speaking of
ostensible governments, multiplenews outlets report that the US
government is close tofinalizing a deal for the sale
of TikTok. Oracle, whose servershouse TikTok's US recommendation
engine and user data was oncethought to be the preferred
purchaser. But late last week,Reuters reported that quote,

(03:15):
White House led talks arecoalescing around a plan for the
biggest non Chinese investors inparent company ByteDance to up
their stakes and acquire theshort video apps US operations,
end quote.
Among the investors areSusquehanna International Group
and General Atlantic. Reutersreports that private equity firm
KKR is also involved. Andfinally, biotech and personal

(03:40):
genomics company twenty threeand Me has filed for chapter 11
bankruptcy protection and itsCEO, founder Anne Wojcicki, has
said she will step down,although she will retain a seat
on the board. This leads to anumber of questions about what
happens to the geneticsinformation of the 15 some
million people who have used theservice in the event of the

(04:02):
impending liquidation of all ofits assets. California's
attorney general Rob Bontareleased a statement on March 21
reading in part quote, due tothe trove of sensitive consumer
data twenty three and me hasamassed, attorney general Bonta
reminds Californians of theirright to direct the deletion of
their genetic data under thegenetic information privacy act

(04:24):
and California consumer privacyact, end quote.
Though these laws were passed inCalifornia, most websites make
these features available to allusers regardless of their
location. So thanks California,I guess. We'll put a link to AG
Bonta's statement in thedescription which includes
directions for deleting your 23and me data if you need them. In

(05:06):
show news this week, this is thefirst episode of Neverpost
officially distributed byRadiotopia. So that is very
exciting.
If this is news to you, justclick back one episode and
listen to our explainer aboutwhat Radiotopia is and what this
means for the show. And if thisis your first never post joining

(05:27):
us from some other part of theRadiotopia family of shows,
welcome. We are very happy thatyou're here. As mentioned last
episode, I was on MattSilverman's influence podcast
talking about my career in mediaand what it is like making
content these days. So that isout now.
We'll put a link to that in theshow notes. And also, I had the

(05:50):
immense pleasure of speakingwith Kurt White, a clinical
psychotherapist, a clinicalsocial worker, and a teacher at
the Smith College School forSocial Work, as well as the vice
president of communitypartnerships, communications,
and development at theBrattleboro retreat where he
hosts their podcast unraveling.It's actually kind of a cousin

(06:12):
show to never post. Both showsare made by some of the same
people. Kurt and I talked abouthow it is that, our interactions
with the Internet can help usconstruct our sense of self, and
how this becomes the source ofall kinds of anxiety for all
kinds of people for a lot ofdifferent reasons.
You can listen to our chat overon unraveling. We'll put a link

(06:33):
in the show notes. And we likedit so much that we're actually
gonna publish a segment lengthversion on the next episode of
Neverpost. But if you wannalisten to it now, please go
check out unraveling with Kurtand his co host Mary. They are
amazing.
It's a great show. We're allreally huge Kurt and Mary fans
over here on Neverpost. Okay.That's the news I have for you

(06:55):
this week. Next, Georgia and the75 hard style challenge, then me
and Mike Masnik on section twothirty.
But first, each member of theteam went out and bought a
mechanical keyboard and did nottouch it until we sat down to
record a typing tournament. Inour interstitials this week, the

(07:16):
team uses monkeytype.com to seewho got those WPMs.

Jason Oberholtzer (07:29):
Hey, type freaks. Welcome to the big show.
First round, Georgia Hampton,Hans Butoh in the blue corner.
Georgia Hampton, will you tellthe folks at home what you're
typing with today?

Georgia Hampton (07:45):
I'm rocking a Red Dragon Ultimate Gaming Rig,
model number s one three four inthe color mint green.

A strong addition to the fields. Georgia
will be typing out of the leftside of your headphones.
Georgia, please march your wayover there.

Aye aye.

And in the red corner, Hans Buto Hans, what
are you typing with today?

Hans Buetow (08:07):
You will never defeat my LUT detect j one
twenty. Corporate black borrowedfrom my wife's work.

Hans will be typing out of the right
earphone. Hans, march your wayover there.

Yeah. Hans did a backflip. Woah. I

am so ready for this. Position your microphones.

Okay, everyone. We will be typing 100
words. The first person to cleartheir 100 words will go on to
the final round at the end ofthis show. I will count you in.
Are you all on monkey type?

Hell yeah.

Just staring at your words.

Okay. Okay. I'm trying not to read them.

I wanna see your hands on camera. Your hands
can leave frame and begin typingin three, two, one,

type. Georgia is locked in. I'm just euphoric.

This is so intense. I'm I'm

so bad. Hans is really putting putting the knees
into it. He's really got thestance of someone who is working
very hard.

The longest I have not seen Georgia smile in
my entire life.

Oh, first blink. That's the first blink of the
round.

This is kind of a sleep aid for me. This is
good.

On. I'm getting there.

Collin's digging deep. Woah. Georgia's done.

Oh, 90

92.
90 two?
Georgia Hampton came to win.

Georgia, Field (10:21):
That's how you do it, baby. Alright.

I can see nothing. I can see nothing. Me.

Alright. Georgia Hampton will be back on
the mint machine in the finalround of the tournament.

Georgia, what were you what what's your WPM? Oh my
god. 84. Yeah. It was close tothat.
What's your accuracy? 92%. Whyare

you coming for me like this?

What what percent? You already

lost, man.

What what what percent was your accuracy?

92.

God. Yeah. I was close to that too. Okay.

Mike Masnick (10:52):
Okay. I believe it. I also

am I also am good typer.

I am now learning I hate this keyboard.
That was it's so annoying. Ihate

using it. Well, alright, sickos. We'll see
you back here in twenty some oddminutes.

Oh, god.

Avery Trufelman (11:25):
Okay. So what was the actual garment that
broke you?

It
was this faded blue bomberjacket. So that's me, obviously.
I'm talking with AveryTruffelman, host of Articles of
Interest, a podcast whichexplores fashion, clothing, and
our relationship to both. We'llget to the bomber jacket and
how, yes, it broke me. Butfirst, here's me two months ago.

Okay. It's day one of the seventy five day hard
style challenge. It's01/06/2025, which feels like, an
ominous day to start this. Butyou know what?

Let's do it. First of all, it is 29 degrees
in the city

of Chicago, Illinois, but it feels like 13
degrees. So I think we'relooking at pants. Maybe. God.
I'm already so stressed out.
Why is it that the second Idecide to do this, I'm like,
what are clothes and have I everworn them? What is this? Who

(12:42):
bought this stuff? Not me.
Oh, god. Okay.

The seventy five day hard style no buy
challenge is a TikTok trendstarted by fashion influencer
Mandy Lee last year. She's alsoknown by her handle old loser in
Brooklyn. Mandy presents thechallenge as a way to save
money, to learn about your owncloset, and ideally, a bit more
about your personal style.

(13:10):
The rule's fairly straightforward. Get
dressed every single day forseventy five days straight and
document all of your looks.Don't buy anything new. Don't
introduce anything new to yourwardrobe. This one's really,
really important because thepoint is to really get creative
and rely on your own brain andyour own closet for inspiration.
During the no buy, one stops consuming in
order to confront their closet.Put new outfits together with

(13:33):
what's already there. Afterseventy five days, your clothes
buying habits are hopefully moreintentional.
While you're going through this journey and
documenting your outfits, you'regoing to be collecting a dataset
of what you actually wear. Andthis acts like a sort of catalog
to track what you're really,really wearing so you can enjoy
your clothes in a new way anddiscover any wardrobe gaps that

(13:55):
might exist.
By documenting your outfits, Mandy means
posting, and people do.

Today is my first day joining in on Mandy
Lee's seventy five day stylechallenge, and I'm really
excited.
I wanna, like, lift my spirits.So here's me documenting day
one.
And I'm wearing just like ablack turtleneck, and I decided
to wear just this vintage navyblue button down on top of it

(14:23):
because I haven't worn it in awhile.
I wore a Saksha jacket fromMexico, secondhand Coach bag,
vintage Ralph Sunnies fromVenice. And I think I wanna pair
it with this red bag because Ilove doing a pop of red with
gingham. I love this outfit.

The No Buy is its own version of a show and
tell. It's between a get readywith me and a haul video. It's
also kind of a brag, a way toshow off what you already have
in your closet. Let me tell youabout mine, my closet. I have a
complicated relationship to myclothes, and my wardrobe is in a

(15:03):
constant state of flux.
I have a closet with a dozen orso coats in it and another one
full of pants and dresses andskirts and shoes. I have 36
pairs of shoes, including heels.And finally, I have a dresser of
shirts, sweaters, sweatshirts,and, like, three more pairs of
pants. I adore shopping, and Iwindow shop online daily. I

(15:27):
browse Depop.
I always have a new pair ofpants open in a tab on my
computer. I go to vintagemarkets every couple of weeks
and often end up leaving withsomething or several things. For
my whole life, buying clotheshas been a salve for a bad day
or a painful breakup or a funk.But I tend to overbuy garments

(15:48):
I'd consider staples, stuff Ican wear all the time. That
means I've wound up with 26total pairs of pants, a lot of
turtlenecks, and a lot of black.
My closet is full of repeats.Three identical black
turtlenecks, a section of mycloset dedicated to eight black
dresses that are almost all thesame length. I tend to put

(16:12):
together uniforms and stick withthem. I wear the same pair of
Docs every day despite having 35other pairs of shoes to choose
from. I wear the same earringsevery day.
And that sameness is what oftendrives me to go buy something
special and new, even if it's afourth identical black
turtleneck. I've wanted to breakout of this for a while. I just

(16:36):
want variety. And I do have somecolorful pieces in my wardrobe.
I have skirts.
I have cool vintage jackets. Ihave interesting rings and
necklaces. Like, the tools arethere. I know they are. I just
have to make myself use them.
And I was hoping that the no buycould hold my hand to the fire

(16:57):
and force myself to even justadd more uniforms to the roster.
There's no world where I stopwearing mostly black. I like
wearing black. And I also thinkchanging that would terrify
everyone who knows me. But I didwant to spice things up, play
around some more, have fun.

(17:17):
I wasn't going to post myoutfits every day on TikTok or
whatever, but I did documentthem in another way by recording
myself with the Voice Memo appdaily.

We got, little black turtleneck top that's like
a tank top under a cotton, like,bright green sweater, little
western belt with a silverbuckle, these carpenter jeans
that I wear all the time, andthen yellow socks that are sort

(17:50):
of a butter yellow, which I'mgonna wear with my little
loafers.

Yeah. I think we got it. Day one down, only 74
to go. That first day, I didpretty well. And for a week, it
felt fun to shop in my owncloset instead of online.
I was actually clawing my wayout of my all black outfit
everyday purgatory. But as thedays ticked on, I started to

(18:22):
feel different.

I'm in
that place
where I don't like any of myclothes, and I feel like I've
never put on clothes in my life.

At first, I blame the weather. And I mean,
it is hard to put togethermultiple slayful outfits when
what I really need to do is wearthe thickest, warmest sweater I
own multiple days in a row. Butthat wasn't really the problem.

Something about, like like, documenting this,
like, sucks.
Like, ugh, god. I feel like

I like, I wanna just magically have a better
relationship to my clothes or,like, know how to put a cool
outfit together that's differentthan the way I normally dress.
But, like, why would I wanna dothat? This is just my normal my
normal life. Like, I don't I'mnot even posting photos of
these. Like, all you're hearingis me losing it.

(19:32):
The longer I documented myprocess, the more I felt this
pressure, guilt, shame. I didnot feel closer to my personal
style. If anything, I felt likethe opposite. Rooting around in
my closet revealed the holes inmy wardrobe, but in a painful

(19:53):
way. Like, I have this amazingpair of striped pants that I was
excited to style until Irealized they just don't fit me
anymore.
I found this cropped chestnutbrown sweatshirt that I had
bought maybe, like, five yearsago, tried it on, and genuinely

(20:14):
couldn't understand why I hadbought it in the first place. It
fit so weird on me. The necklinewas too structured. It tugged
upwards in this really weird waywhen I lifted my arms. Like, why
did I even own this?
So I was stuck in all blackagain, recording myself
describing the same uniformoutfits that I've always worn

(20:36):
since time in memorial. I wasn'ton a journey of personal style
discovery. I was trapped in thepast and unable to leave.

Yeah. When you're confronted by your
closet, you're confronted withall of your past selves. It's a
way of, like, having to learn tolive with your past, which is
rough.

That's Avery again. And I wanted to talk to
her about why the no buychallenge made me feel so bad.
And she said that that's kind ofthe point.

This is something that I've been
wrestling with for a very longtime. And I think it's something
that's so deep and fundamental,and it has to do with our
relationship to our own desires,our own sense of fulfillment.
And every time the promise of anew garment comes along, it's

(21:33):
the promise of a new self. Andthat's part of, like, getting
right with yourself, is,realizing, okay, understanding
who you are, how much capacityyou have for change, how much
you have changed from the past.I mean, it's like existential
stuff.

But it's tricky to know where and how I need to
change when it comes to clothes.On the one hand, denying myself
the desire that comes fromshopping feels like ignoring key
parts of myself, the parts of methat truly find joy in playing
around with clothes. But on theother hand, I've been chasing
that promise of a new self foryears. I'd buy a black sweater

(22:21):
and feel renewed for a minute,and then my eye would start
wandering again.

It's part of why I don't do Instagram or
TikTok because those things arelike desire engines. I am going
to look at these things. I'mgoing to see what other people
have. I'm going to see how theycomport themselves, and I am
going to find some lack inmyself. I'm going to I don't
know.
I was I was on Instagram for alittle bit and immediately was

(22:47):
like, oh, everything I do iswrong. Like, all my clothes are
wrong. Everything I I need tochange it all. So it's this,
like, complicated wrestling withdesire all the time. It really
vexes me a lot.

I wasn't expecting to hear Avery, of all
people, tell me that she goesthrough this push and pull of
existential turmoil aroundclothes. But it's also exactly
what I deal with too. Any videoon TikTok, any Instagram story
by a friend of a friend, I can'thelp myself but laser focus on

(23:25):
their cool pair of shoes or thatplaid sweater they have as a new
potential purchase that I couldmake. And removing the
possibility of continuing thispractice forced me to contend
with its spoils. Namely,confronting a closet full of a
lot of the same stuff andlacking a lot of clothing I

(23:45):
actually need.
In a way, that's the no buydoing its job, by forcing me to
look squarely at my closetwithout distraction. But my
conversation with Avery made merealize that my discomfort
didn't really feel like this bigconfrontation with desire. The
thing that was so unbearablyhorrible about this process

(24:10):
wasn't my wardrobe. It wasdocumenting my outfits. But why?
Why did that suck so much morethan anything else? I was
wrestling with this questionwhen I talked to Kyle Chaeka,
the columnist from The NewYorker, for my segment about
having fun online. And inaddition to his many other

(24:31):
accolades, Kyle also wrote abook called The Longing for
Less, which was aboutminimalism. So I figured I'd ask
him this question. Why diddocumenting this process feel so
terrible?

Kyle Chayka (24:45):
I mean, like you're you're dressing for the
internet. You're performing thisexercise in order to generate
more content, which in a way isanother form of stuff like,
you're contributing to thegeneral mess of the world by
putting out another video eventhough it's about not buying
stuff. So to me, improving yourrelationship with stuff should

(25:10):
be about stripping away thelayers and stripping away the
like meta meta quality of theact on the internet and just
confronting the thing itself.

So I mean, thinking of it that way, how do
you succeed at a no buychallenge?

Kyle Chayka (25:26):
By not buying anything and then not posting
about it.

By recording my daily outfits, I put myself
under a microscope, scrutinizingsomething I do every day. And
that started off okay. But overtime, I got more judgmental,
more self critical. And I wasdoing it because I felt like I
was performing. By virtue ofcreating a document, I created

(26:07):
an audience of myself and, Imean, you listening to this
right now.
It made everything aperformance, and that
performance did not comenaturally to me. It felt
horrible.

Okay. So I'm just lying in bed right now
thinking about outfits and how Ican kinda play around more with
my closet. And I felt myselffeeling so stressed and so
guilty. And I I I wanted torecord myself kind

of going through this because, like, what
the hell is this?

Why why should I feel bad about this? And I think
it's because I'm

doing this for every like, four people.

I think I'm predicting judgment.

Every half baked criticism I had of my
clothes gained a body and abrain and a voice. The second I
realized I was documentingmyself for an audience, I got
lost in this mindset where, likeAvery described, I worried that
my clothes were wrong and that Ineeded to, quote, unquote, fix
my closet. But rather than beingdressed, I'd become fixated on

(27:28):
getting dressed. And that's notthe point of the no buy
challenge. Videos show peoplewho already have their outfit
put together.
And I'm sure they also stood infront of their closet and felt
the way I felt, the all toocommon, ugh, I have nothing to
wear feeling. But with a no buy,you're not supposed to show your

(27:49):
work. You're supposed to showyour cool vintage jacket. But I
was sick of this show and tellfrom hell. It wasn't working.
So after telling Avery about thechallenge and the difference
between getting dressed andbeing dressed, I did mention my
personal experience. I don'tthink I told you this. I did try

(28:12):
this.

I was gonna ask. Yeah. Okay. Let it go.

Well, I lasted about three and a half weeks.

Wow. Hey.

That's pretty good.

But no, I'm serious. Too kind. You're too
kind.

I'm really serious, though.

I had kind of assumed that Avery would chide
me for giving up so quickly, butshe didn't. And I'm grateful for
that because I wanted to shut upthe part of me that somehow
still felt guilty. And it's afeeling I wrestled with a lot on
the day when I stopped doing theno buy. So

I did a bit of a whoopsie uh-oh yesterday.
Went to a vintage market with afriend,
and I did did buy a couplethings.

I hear a chorus of booing. But listen. It feels
a

lot better doing this as in, like, buying
something vintage than buyinganything new. I'm very much
gonna stick to that, but

I broke I broke no buy edge.

I I betrayed you all, but

I don't know. You'll have to forgive me.

Got a dress on today. That's all.

Let me tell you something. The difference in how
I felt after going to thatvintage market and, yes, buying
that blue bomber jacket wasastounding. And it wasn't just
that I was buying stuff againand fueling that desire engine
like before. I was intentionallydeciding how this journey would

(30:20):
look for me specifically. A nobuy just wasn't going to work
for me in the long term, and Ihad finally allowed myself to
realize that.
But I mean, the no buy also kindof worked because the stuff I
bought at that vintage marketwas filling holes in my wardrobe
I realized I had while doing myno buy. But now, I felt like I

(30:44):
was actually able to do what Iwanted to do in the first place.
Get to know my closet is a wayof getting to know my personal
style, fill in some gaps, andhave fun. I wanna play this one
specific part of my conversationwith Avery again.

That's part of, like, getting right with
yourself. It's like realizing,okay, understanding who you are,
how much capacity you have forchange, how much you have
changed from the past. I mean,it's like existential stuff.

I mean, that is exactly what I wound up doing.
Just, you know, in a differentway than I originally expected.
I went into this wholeexperiment thinking that a no
buy would inspire me to play, tobe innovative, to challenge
myself to get out of my fashioncomfort zone. But what the no

(31:41):
buy really showed me was that Ihad filled my closet with
clothes that would never let meout of that comfort zone in the
first place. And it certainlyproved to me that performing,
being dressed, even for animagined audience, was not going
to inspire me at all.
The possibility of beingobserved as I struggled through

(32:03):
this only made me scared thatsomehow I had already failed.
Kyle was right about that. Theonly way, at least for me, to
succeed at this process was tostop posting about it. Thank you

(32:36):
to both Avery Truffleman andKyle Chaeka for helping me
through the maze of this no buyjourney. In the end, I decided
to switch from a no buy to a nonew, as in only buying
secondhand clothes.
That felt really good. And it'shonestly something I'm going to
keep doing well past the seventyfive day mark, which I reached

(32:57):
on March 22. But I know this isonly one of countless ways to
reexamine your wardrobe. So I'dbe very interested to hear about
what has helped you connect withyour style and with your
relationship to clothes. I mean,I'm still looking for new
tactics, so tell me what's beenhelpful.
I wanna hear about it. All theways to contact us are in the

(33:19):
show notes.

In the blue corner, weighing in at four pounds
sixteen ounces is Jason'skeyboard.

I can keep it. Jason, do

you wanna tell us who we have?

How much my keyboard weighs? Is that what
you want me to tell you? I thinkI have that. So today, I'll be
typing on a high ground hunter xhunter performance 65% scale
wired magnetic linear dynamicactuation switch gaming keyboard
with rapid trigger Hisokaedition.

I'm sweating. I'm sweating.

That thing's street legal?

And in the red corner, the host of the show,
the keyboard with the mostest,Mike Rugnetta. Mike, what you
what are you packing over there?

I am typing on a Royal Kluge r s 61 no. RK? Hold
on. Let me check. Royal Kluge rk 61 mechanical keyboard.

Mike, take your corner in the right. Jason, take
your corner in the left.

Alright. I'll see you in hell.

Gentlemen, position your microphones.

Jason, I think we can still be friends after this.

We'll see about that.

This is the last episode of the show.

Alright. Bring up monkeytype.com. Are the
competitors ready? Hold yourhands up. I wanna see hands up.
Hands up in the screen. And Iwant you to start typing in
three two one go.

Experience of

this. Yeah.

This is pretty brutal.

Mike's eyes are locked.

Turns out these scale difference matters.

Jason's eyes are going up and down. Up and down.
Look at that from Jason. Oh. Youshould have got

those little cover covers.

Oh, My space bar doesn't work.

Oh, this oh,

no. Oh, this is flag on play.

Oh. That's right. That's right. Keyboard down.
Keyboard down.

Technical difficulties. Yes. Someone get a
medic.

Ahsoka wouldn't stop for you, and I
won't either.

Oh my god. This is oh my god. This is tragic. I
have to push so hard on thespace bar. This is what I get
for buying a used keyboard.
This is

not what it sounds like when we are in production
meetings normally. Normally,everyone's Hans, why are you
lying? Every

time I look down, the changing lights
distract me. Oh my. I'm done.

I'm not I am not even close. Not even close.

Jason. Wow.

I did not get to 50 words.

What? Was it a space bar issue? Was this an
equipment failure?

Yes. It was a space bar issue.

Hate to see it, folks.

Hate to see it. It is a poor competitor who
blames their tools.

It's almost like somebody with the nen
ability bungee gum made yourspace bar a little sticky.

We'll run that one by the stewards.

Jason, well played. Just don't ask my
accuracy score.

No. I gotta know. I gotta know since we're
now competitors.

67%. Not great.

Well, it will be a pleasure to to fight
against you, Jason.

Type. Type type again type against Georgia
unless you have other plans.

Well, I'm on my way. Let's just say that.

Stay tuned for more drama.

The internet is infrastructure, obviously. Wires
in buildings full of machinesand people in those buildings
making websites, but it's alsoan institution. In the sense of
it being a practice, a set ofrelationships between things.
Something that is done versussomething that simply is. And as

(38:06):
we're learning now in manydifferent ways across the world,
institutions can be surprisinglyfragile and their continued
existence can depend on not verymuch at all really.
Some spit in paper clips,toothpicks and bubble gum. In a
sense, the internet as you and Iknow it at least is humming

(38:27):
along because no one has pressedtoo hard on any particular
toothpick. One of which iscalled section two thirty.
Senator Dick Durbin, democratfrom Illinois, and senator
Lindsey Graham, republican fromSouth Carolina, are gearing up
to put forward legislationpossibly as soon as this week

(38:48):
that would repeal section twothirty. We wanted to understand
more fully what section twothirty does, why it's so
important, and why politiciansmight wanna get rid of it and in
so doing potentially completelyreshape the internet.
So we talked with Tech Dirt'sfounder, Mike Masnik. Joining us

(39:24):
is Mike Masnik, the CEO andfounder of the Copia Institute,
a tech law and speech think tankwhich operates the blog Tech
Dirt that reports on the legaland policy issues faced by the
tech industry with particularfocus on privacy, free speech,
and copyright. Since August2024, Mike has also been on the
board of the microbloggingsocial media platform Blue Sky.

(39:47):
His white paper protocols notplatforms, a technological
approach to free speech in partinspired the creation of Blue
Sky. He's also the host ofOtherwise Objectionable, a
podcast about the origins of thetech boom, debates over speech
and liability online, andsection two thirty, which is
what we're gonna be talkingabout here today.

(40:09):
Mike, I'm a big fan of you andyour work. I've been following
you for a long time, so I reallyappreciate you coming on the
show to talk to us.

Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm always interested
in talking about this stuff withsmart knowledgeable people, so
Well,

we'll see. Don't let's not

get ahead of ourselves here.

So you're here to talk to us about section two
thirty. For listeners to theshow who might not know what
section two thirty is, it wasincluded in the Communications
and Decency Act of 1996, and itreads as follows. It's very
short. No provider or user of aninteractive computer service
shall be treated as thepublisher or speaker of any

(40:46):
information provided by anotherinformation content provider.
And I've seen you and otherpeople describe this as
essentially 25 words which makethe Internet as we know it
possible.
And before we talk about whysomeone would want to change or
repeal this, I was wondering ifyou could just tell us what it

(41:08):
was intended to do at the time.Like, what do these 25 words
mean?

So it's 26 words.

26. I didn't count right. Okay. Thank you for
the thank you for the life hackcheck. Yes.

And there were a few different concerns about the
Internet going on in thenineteen nineties. The Internet
is early. The World Wide Web hasjust started. There are other
aspects of the Internet that hasexisted, and everyone's sort
trying to figure out what to doabout it. And what became
section two thirty, which wasnot designed to be part of the
Communications Decency Act, Itwas designed to be its own

(41:42):
standalone act to say, if youare an interactive computer
service that you are hostingother people's content, you
can't be held liable for thatcontent.
There is a little bit more tothat law. It's not just those 26
words. Mhmm. But, you know, theidea was like, this is a better
approach. What we're saying isthat if you're running an
Internet service, you can chooseto take down any content that

(42:03):
you want.
You can choose to leave up anycontent that you want. You can
choose to use all differentkinds of tools and resources to
to allow users to filter. Youcan sort of empower everyone.
You can empower the companies tomake their own decisions in
terms of, like, what types ofcommunities do they want. If
they wanna create a gardeningcommunity.
Right? Can they say, like, noposts that aren't gardening, or
is that is that introducingliability? You know, part of

(42:25):
02/30 was like, yeah. You cancreate a gardening community,
and you can ban nonverbalspeech. Yeah.
You could

do what you want if someone comes in and they
start wanting to talk about,like, building car engines or
whatever.

Exactly. And so the house supported it, and so
they passed it. Yeah. And sothen you had two laws. You had
the senate had passed this thiscrazy sensorial law that was
like, take down everything.
Anything bad is illegal. Andthen you had this house bill
that was, you know, let there beDo whatever you want. Yeah. To

(42:56):
to to create the communitiesthat you want. And the congress
and its ridiculous non wisdom,they took these two approaches
that that directly conflict witheach other and just put them
together.
And then the the Cox Wyden billbecame part of the
Communications Decency Act, eventhough it was designed to be the
opposite and opposing theCommunications Decency Act. So

(43:17):
then you had this one billaltogether. Yeah. But then the
ACLU challenged all of thesenate side of it, which got
tossed out nine nothing by theSupreme Court, and all that was
left was section two thirty.

Wow. And so my understanding, you know, to just
talk about, like, who benefitsfrom the protections provided by
two thirty and what kinds ofthings that it does, It's not
just being able to moderatecontent level, decisions, like
posts that people make. This isalso what allows, say, like
Gmail to implement spam filters,because that is a way of

(43:50):
determining what sorts ofmessages get and do not get to
an end user. Is that right?

Yeah. Who it benefits honestly is is everyone
who uses the Internet. Yeah.It's it's it's hard to explain
how much it benefits people.Early on, there were lawsuits
from people whose emails werecaught in spam filters, and they
said, you know, we're we'resuing this.
You know, it's defamatory tocall our email spam.

Right.

And, you know, those got thrown out on two
thirty grounds. And if theydidn't, like, that would be
terrible. It it it goes evenfurther than that because, you
know, one of the elements of twothirty that is often missed, and
these are two of the 26 wordsthat are in the law, is it's not
just about interactivecommunication services. It's
also about users. So it's orusers.

(44:36):
And so if you retweet something,you are protected. You don't get
sued. If you retweet somethingthat's defamatory, you're
protected. The person who madethe speech can still be, you
know, held viable for fordefamation. But also if you
forward an email, and there wereYeah.
Some of the early cases about02:30 was someone received an
email making accusations aboutsomeone else and they forward it

(44:58):
to a mailing list. And thequestion was, who is liable for
the, you know, potentiallydefamatory accusations in the
email? Is it the person whowrote the the email or is it the
person who forwarded it?

And so because it says no provider or user of
interactive computer serviceExactly. You're fine.

Yeah. So what it is saying is that whoever
created the content, they areliable, not the person who just
sort of passed it along.

Yeah. So, I mean, 02/30 has been it seems like
since its inception now, aperennially challenged piece of
law. Like, it's always on thesenatorial chopping block in one
way or the other. And it'sfunny. It's like, it was started
as a bipartisan project and nowhas had bipartisan criticism.

Yes.

For its entire history. Like, what what is it
about two thirty that makes itsort of, like, stick in the craw
of so many lawmakers? Why whydoes it keep coming back up?

Yeah. It's really, you know, around twenty fifteen,
twenty sixteen that things beganto change. And and, again, on
both sides. Right? You have boththe Democrats and the
Republicans being mad about it.
And the reality is that itappears to be that both of them
want to control the Internetbetter for their own interests.
You know, the First Amendment isthere and it protects lies and

(46:20):
disinformation with a fewexceptions. Very narrow
exceptions. There's obviouslydefamation. There's fraud.
There are things like that. Whatthe Democrats tend to be mad
about is that social mediacompanies were not more
proactive in trying to take downthe the disinformation, which
again is not entirely true,which is where the Republicans

(46:40):
got mad at all of it. Becauseespecially, you know, post
twenty sixteen election, therewere lots of concerns about
election misinformation,election disinformation. And
because the public spoke outabout it, because the media
spoke out about it, andimportantly, because advertisers
began to pull theiradvertisements from Facebook and

(47:01):
from Twitter and saying, like,we won't support a platform that
is pushing electiondisinformation. Yeah.
The companies themselves had abusiness reason to actually try
and tackle that. The responsethen though was Republicans
freaking out and saying this iscensorship.

Because they're because they are saying it's a
it's a political position andnot incorrect information being
right, of course.

The reality is that the scale of the process of
what's called now trust andsafety of handling this kind of
information is beyond yourimagination. It is an impossible
problem, and mistakes are goingto be made. And some of the
mistakes are just because peopledisagree subjectively over does
this cross the line or not. Someof it is just because the
frontline people have, like,fifteen seconds to make a

(47:45):
decision on some of thesethings.

Yeah.

Right? And and you're never going to be able to
get all those things right. Butsection two thirty, part of the
importance of it is it says,like, if you make a mistake
because you're going to makemistakes, you're going to make
many mistakes every day, youdon't get punished for it.

Yeah.

If you were to take that away, that actually
makes it more difficult tomoderate content because any
mistake could create thepotential for legal liability.
And so, you know, the the resultthen would be taking away
section two thirty depending onhow you look at it. There's a
few different things of where itcould go. But one aspect of it

(48:21):
is that many sites would thendecide not to look. Yeah.
If they don't moderate at all,then they cannot be held liable
under the First Amendment. Andso the incentive then is to just
look the other way and try notto find out any of the bad
content. And then your websitegets filled with spam. And
again, like, you know, if thisis supposed to be a gardening

(48:42):
forum and you can't weed outspam or off topic subjects or
anything like that, or you mightintroduce liability, it it would
be impossible, and we would nothave the kind of openness of the
Internet that you want. Soeither you get to that point
where you do no moderation atall

And you have just a complete cesspool, like, murky
swamp of everything.

Garbage. Awful. Nobody even likes it. Even the
people who are like, no. Wedon't want any censorship.

They wouldn't like it.

They wouldn't like the spam. Or you have sort of
the Netflix style Internet,which is like, okay. This is
just purely broadcast. We arejust picking and choosing the
few things that you are able tosee, and it's not an interactive
service. It's now a broadcastservice.

So I mean, that completely without 02:30, the
way the Internet lookscompletely changes, basically,
overnight.

Exactly. Yeah. It is a very, very different
Internet.

The people who do wanna get rid of it, why do they
want that? Or do they notactually want it?

I don't think anyone really wants it, but I
don't think they fullyunderstand the implications of
it.

Okay.

And so, you know, I think a lot of it is just
control. Right? That that thesepeople want the Internet to be
in the image of what they want.And often with critics of of
section two thirty, they havevery strong feelings of what the
Internet should look like intheir ideal world. And it
doesn't because people areterrible sometimes and people

(50:07):
are different.
But a lot of people think, well,if only the Internet match my
view of what it should be, thenit would be great. And the best
way to get there is to removetwo thirty.

But really what they're saying is like, if only
there were no people whobothered me in the world.

Yes. Yes. Okay. Got it. Great.

It's an unrealistic view of the world,
but I don't think they're fullyunderstanding the implications
of it or how the Internet worksfully, how section two thirty
works, and and how the the FirstAmendment underlies both of
those.

And who is it that is making this push now?
Who's the group of people behindit?

So there are a number of politicians, again, on
both sides of the politicalaisle who have been gunning for
section two thirty for a while.On the Republican side, you have
Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley,Marsha Blackburn to some extent.
Ted Cruz really was one of thefirst to to come out and really
yell about section two thirty,completely misrepresenting it,

(51:01):
by the way, as as part of thethat process. On the Democratic
side, you have RichardBlumenthal from Connecticut,
Dick Durbin, Amy Klobuchar. Butso you have this sort of
bipartisan approach

Yeah.

To getting rid of section two thirty. And now the
proposal that that we'reexpecting to come out soon, in
theory, is one that will beheadlined by Graham and Durbin,
bipartisan, and the plan is tosunset section two thirty and
basically say, by the end oftwenty twenty seven, we would
just wipe out section two thirtyand it would be gone from the

(51:36):
laws on the books.

So listeners to the show will recognize
Blumenthal and Blackburn is alsohaving been involved in COSA
Yes.

Which is

part of another sort of like moral panic of like
the Kids Online Safety Act, wehave to protect children. Again,
from pornography and sextrafficking and various content
level evils, which much likeFosta Sesta, a lot of its
critics will say will cause moreproblems than it will solve,
pushing things further into thefringes. In that group that you

(52:04):
just mentioned, I think it wasDurbin who had also said, you'll
correct me maybe if I'm wrong,that it's like, we're gonna set
a date, it will sunset by 2027,but we don't actually want that
to happen. We don't we're not wedon't actually want to get rid
of two thirty. What we want isfor the social media platforms

(52:27):
to come and talk to us aboutregulation.
Can you what is in

in a word,

what like, why write a law? Why write
legislation if you don'tactually want it to happen?

Yeah. It it is very much the give us what we
want or we'll shoot the Internetkind of of a Yeah.

Really is like a it's like a hostage situation,
really. And, like, it's not, youknow, they're using the back end
of a screwdriver as a hammer.Like Yes. What like, why? Do you
like

Yeah. Instead of recognizing that the problem is
them and that they don't reallyunderstand what they're doing,
they're blaming because it'seasy to do this, they're blaming
big tech and saying, like, oh,big tech lobbyists. Every time
we try and change section twothirty, the big tech lobbyists
descend and they're too powerfuland it's like this big deal. And
so, therefore, we have to, like,give them an ultimatum. And the

(53:22):
only way to give big tech anultimatum is to try and take
away two thirds entirely.

Which is just extremely not true.

Right. Mark Zuckerberg has come out and
said, and Facebook or Meta's,you know, official stance is
that the law should be changed.And the ways that they are
suggesting changing it wouldeffectively dismantle section
two thirty. And people say,well, why would they do that if
that's going to lead to moreliability for them? The reality
is that what section two thirtydoes well, it protects smaller

(53:53):
platforms much more than itprotects bigger platforms.
Mhmm. The bigger platforms mayface more legal threats without
section two thirty and moreliability, but the First
Amendment will still protectthem. The difference is that in
a section two thirty case wherea platform can use section two
thirty, you can get it dismissedat the earliest stage. It

(54:15):
probably costs a company about ahundred thousand dollars to get
a case dismissed on two thirtygrounds. If you're getting a
case dismissed on firstamendment grounds, it's much
more involved.
It goes deeper into the process.You have to do a bunch of other
things. It's probably more alongthe lines of $2,000,000.

So all the small platforms can't afford that?
Exactly. They're gonna go away.Yeah. Right.
Which Facebook loves.

Which Facebook absolutely loves because right
now Facebook is losing users,and they're finding that there
is more and more competitionthat is a problem for them. But
Facebook also has a buildingfull of lawyers. Right? If they
start facing a whole bunch oflawsuits that are about
2,000,000 a pop that they'regoing to win, and they know
they're going to win because theFirst Amendment will still

(54:59):
protect them, they can affordmany of those lawsuits and
they'll just go to court andthey'll win. And it'll cost
them, you know, whatever,$50,000,000.
That's pocket change.

Yeah. Couch couch cushion money.

Exactly. But for smaller companies, for others,
you know, for little forums, forany new competitor that is
coming up, that is existential.You get one or two of those
lawsuits, many of those will goout of business.

So I have two follow ups to this. One is just
sort of like, I have a sidequestion and then an actual
follow-up. The side question islike, is this also a way it
seems like they're already goingthis way, but is this also a way
for Facebook to be like, listen,we didn't wanna moderate
anything anyways. So we we're wecould just get to stop and that
rules.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think they
would love it.

Yeah. My, my actual follow-up is from the
perspective of someone who is alawmaker and who is ostensibly
invested in the health of theAmerican economy, which, like,
at this moment, that might be astrange thing to claim a
lawmaker is interested in. ButYeah. Do they just not know that
this is a a, like, death blow tothe kind of economic development

(56:10):
that has been, like, really,like, the signature
accomplishment of the countryfor the last thirty years, or do
they think that they're helpingthat in some way?

It it's a little unclear to me, and I think there
are different motivations fordifferent different ones. I
think there is the moral panicaspect of it. There are a number
of groups who are really focusedon things like child safety. I
think they're incorrect inthinking that two thirty is the
problem when actually two thirtyis what allows companies to
experiment and try and figureout ways to protect children and

(56:41):
to do more to keep children safeonline without facing legal
liability. There's also theentertainment industry,
Hollywood and the record labelsspent many years fighting the
Internet companies overcopyright issues, and mostly
lost.
And some of the HollywoodLobbyists effectively decided,
well, now we lost the copyrightfight, but we're going to

(57:04):
destroy tech companies howeverwe can, and section two thirty
is is our next target. And sosuddenly, you had these people
who had been fighting oncopyright stuff suddenly showing
up in congress experts. And Iwas like, you have no knowledge
or experience with section twothirty. Why are you testifying
as a section two thirty expert?And so you have elements of both

(57:25):
of those in this effort to toundermine two thirty.
You have the people who see itas like, oh, we're gonna profit
from this, and you have thepeople who are making the sort
of moral arguments incorrectly,I think, where they don't really
understand the the nuances andcomplexities here.

What other tools do lawmakers have to get this
work done instead of threateningtwo thirty? Like, are there
other ways for them to get whatthey want?

I actually do think there are a lot of tools,
most of which are totallyignored. And I have been working
on a paper of like all the toolsthat that politicians should
look at before they get to twothirty. Oh, wow. But I've been
working on it forever, and and Inever get it done because so
much other stuff is happening.

We shouldn't have had you on this podcast. You're
we've taken fifty five veryimportant minutes from your
life.

But it's you know, there are a whole bunch of other
tools. Obviously, like antitrustis a big one. Right? If you're
worried that companies aregetting too big, you have
antitrust tools that you canuse. Bigger ones though, I
think, are even more important.
There's there's a law called theCFAA. And I bring this up all
the time and everyone stares atme blankly and they're like,
what is that? The CFAA is theComputer Fraud and Abuse Act.

(58:31):
And it was written in theory toto stop computer hacking. It's
very poorly written and it'svery vague and it's been abused
in all sorts of ways.
Because it talks aboutauthorized or unauthorized
access. And what is authorizedaccess? Well, somebody says,
well, if you violate the termsof service, that's no longer
authorized access, and we cansue you for computer hacking.

(58:52):
But where that has become reallya big problem, I think, and I'll
go back to Meta as the exampleof this, which was in the sort
of, you know, 02/2010 timeframe. I forget exactly when
this started.
There was a company called PowerVentures that they had created a
dashboard that let you look atmultiple social media back when
there was most multiple socialmedia in one unified interface.

(59:14):
You gave power your logins andit would go log in to Meta and
or not Meta then, Facebook andand whatever else was out there
and give you a single unifieddashboard. Facebook sued them
claiming that they violated thecomputer fraud and abuse act
because they claimed it wasunauthorized access. I don't
think it was unauthorized accessbecause the user themselves was
providing their own logins. Theywere giving authorization for

(59:36):
that.
But they won. And that sort ofstripped out the ability for
there to be, you know, a way toget out of of the Facebook silo.
Right? You know, I also think,like, patent law has often been
used to shut down competition.The issue inherent in all of
this is who is controlling yourexperience online, and people
are upset about certainbillionaires in the in most

(59:59):
cases, you know, controllingyour experience and
manipulating.
Yeah. Manipulating what you seeor what you don't see. Right?
That's the underlying concernthat I think a lot of people
have and it's legitimate. Butthe way you get around that is
if there is real competition andif you can still communicate
with people without having to bepulled into the manipulation
engine part of it.

(01:00:19):
And so patent law, CFAA, thereare antitrust in some cases.
There are ways to deal with thatthat isn't break the entire
Internet.

Mike Rugnetta (01:00:30):
Sure. So the future at this point is, like, a
little bit uncertain. We knowthat legislation may be incoming
at some point or another. Wedon't know exactly when. Like,
what should people look out for?
Like, what is the next sixmonths to a year look like?

Mike Masnick (01:00:46):
Yeah. Well, to some extent, I wish I knew.

Yeah. Of course.

It would let me plan stuff a little bit better.
It it does come a little bithaphazardly. You know, the issue
really is what is congress gonnado? And so watching what is
coming out of the senate inparticular, and just seeing
where these things go. And Iwould say being very careful
about, you know, who you truston these issues.
We need people out therespeaking about how important the

(01:01:12):
Internet and the ability tospeak is and the ability to use
alternative services, whetherit's small forums or alternative
social media, how important thatis, you know, people really need
to speak up about it.

So in addition to your show, otherwise
objectionable, what are theother places that people can go
online to learn more about this?

So, obviously, Tech Tirt, I've been writing
about it forever. Yeah. And soyou can follow me there. I am on
Blue Sky, and so I'm oftencommenting there on it. There
are lots of other excellentpeople who are covering this
stuff.
Eric Goldman is a professor atSanta Clara law professor at
Santa Clara University. He has ablog that covers almost every
section two thirty case. It'slike the best database of what's

(01:01:51):
going on. Jeff Kosseff, is a lawprofessor at the Naval Academy,
wrote the book, The 26 WordsThat Created the Internet. He's
been following this stuffclosely.
EFF, as an organization, hasobviously been paying close
attention to this. The ACLU,brought the original case that
that got the CommunicationsDecency Act cost out. All of
them have been following thisand working on these issues. All

(01:02:14):
of them are worth following, andthey do an excellent job of
keeping people up to date onthese things.

Great. We'll put links to all those things in the
show notes. And, yeah, we'll putTech Dirt right at the top.
Can't co cosign, I've beenreading it for years, and it's
an indispensable source for allof this stuff. So thank you for
all of your hard work.
Always appreciate that. Thatgoes constantly to the
grindstone.

Hans Buetow (01:02:56):
Let's get ready to cookie clack. It's a beautiful
day here for the final round ofthe team takes sighting tests

on Neverpost. In the blue corner, Georgia
Hampton. Ow. Ow. Ow.
With an accuracy of 92%. Oh.

Georgia Hampton (01:03:18):
I know

that's right. That's a lot to come

Georgia, Field (01:03:20):
up against. Right.

It's gonna be tough for our other competitor, Jason
the whip fingers overholzer.

Good try, Hans. Nice. Nice one. With an accuracy
of redacted. That's none of your

Jason Oberholtzer (01:03:35):
Not accuracy. It's about vibes.

But, Mike, how do you like the chances of each of
these two competitors?

You're asking me to choose a child and I refuse
to, but Georgia is gonna smokeJason.

I am going to try to get an accuracy at least
above 80, which will slow medown. But I think it is a more
fair way to do this competition.

Jason is going for the political victory. You
know why I lose?

Because I chose to.

It's actually ethically

Yeah.

Better. Alright. Georgia, to your corner in the
left. Jason, to your corner inthe right.

Here I go.

I wanna see hands up. You're gonna start typing on
type. Ready? 321. Type.

Oh. Oh, it's a strong showing.

Jason looking down not as much as

last much. Yeah. He's more comfortable. He looks
way more comfortable on this onthis smaller scale.

I will say Georgia is statuesque.

I now see what I was up against, and, I never
stood a chance.

Jason, looking like he's having a good time.

Yeah. Oh, some deep breaths. Some deep breaths.

Got enough. Yeah.

I understand it now.

Yeah. Yeah. He's got it. This, it looks like the
strategy of improving hisaccuracy might be paying off for
him.

I understand it now.

This this is close to yeah. This is what you like
to see, folks, in the final.This is it. To the wire. Both
competitors strong, coming inhot,

giving it their all. And

it's coming down to the wire. We're getting close.

I was 92 words in.

So close.

Well played, Georgia.

And that's a

Good job.

A 94% accuracy.

Wow. Folks, she just keeps getting better.

71% accuracy trending in the right direction.
Okay.

The next time we do this, we should do it on a
mobile keyboard.

Oh god.

Georgia Hampton, congratulations.

Congratulations, Georgia. Thank you.

As your prize, just mail your keyboard to us,
and we'll dip it in gold for

you.

Perfect. I never wanna see this thing
again.

That is the show we have for you this week. We're
gonna be back here in the mainfeed on Wednesday, April 9 for
$4. You can get a singleMcDonald's Big Mac in the year
02/2002. Though strangely notFebruary or 02/2001 when they
were more than $4. For $4, youcan get a venti chai tea at
Starbucks in 2014.

(01:06:56):
For $4, you can get a Mexicanpizza combo at Taco Bell in
02/2001 or for $4, you could geta membership to never post right
now and support your friendlylocal Internet media and tech
criticism podcast. Sure. You'llget an ad free feed of the show.

(01:07:16):
Sure. You'll get extendedsegments and interviews.
Sure. You'll get sideshows likeour watch along pod Neverwatch
or our sleep aid pod slow post.Sure, Hans will call you and
personally tell you that heloves We're we're not we're not
doing that one anymore. Really?I still think it's okay.

(01:07:39):
Fine. Fine. Fine. Okay. Sorryabout that.
Well, I love you. And I'll loveyou more if you become a member.
NeverPoe.st, 4 dollars a month.Membership, it's good for the
soul. Neverpost's producers areAudrey Evans, Georgia Hampton,

(01:08:00):
and the mysterious doctor firstname last name.
Our senior producer is HansButo. Our executive producer is
Jason Oberholzer, and the show'shost, that's me, is Mike
Rignetta. By the sparklet ofcertain ciliates, cesium

(01:08:28):
practices its cricket song. Am Isupposed to be impressed? My
smoothie comes with GPS.
Excerpt of We Have theTechnology by Michael Robbins.
Neverpost is a production ofCharts and Leisure. It is
distributed by Radiotopia.

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