Listen up people. This is your moment.
Your time to shine. You know what this
is? This is what it takes to be a coin
carrying member of the elite, the real
ones. That, my friends, is a rare
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coin. Originally available only to the
999 original founders immortalized on
this plaque. We kept them in a vault
saying, "All right, only you guys can
have them unless one year, two year, one
global pandemic, hopefully not another
global pandemic later, finally we hit
the 10-year anniversary of the Modern
Rogue YouTube channel. And so, as a
result, we are making them available.
The remaining stock about 200 plus of
these are for you guys, just you guys
who show up at coin scamstuff.com. Head
on over to coin.scamstuff.com
and you can pick up one of these. Now,
why would you want to challenge coin?
I'll tell you why. Cuz sooner or later,
we're going to meet in person. And when
I do, you want you don't want to be
standing in line waiting to get
something signed after a show and then
just say, "Oh, I I I've followed you
since." And then some story and Brian's
eyes flicker off to the side. You don't
want that. Brian's highly distractable.
Everyone knows this. It's science fact.
So instead, you're going to flash one of
these. You'll get his attention full
time right there. And I got to buy you a
drink. All right. Let me see if we can
bring Andrew Mine into the conversation.
We are live. Andrew
live. Are we live?
Yeah. Hold on one second. We're adding
this on here. hopefully about to get his
audio
right on in.
We're finding out. You know what? In the
meantime, we can check and see whether
or not the Oh, you know what?
As soon as I confirm that our chats are
working.
There we go. Confirm the chat.
We'll do this. So, here's a game.
There's a bunch of games that I've known
it's important to start playing, but I
haven't been doing it while I've been
rebuilding everything in a in a more
elite Starf Fighter. You know, there's a
documentary coming out about everything
Brian's done to the studio. It's called
Starf Fighter. Stars Ryan Gosling.
They're not going to say he's playing
Brian Brushwood, but we kind of know
that's exactly what it is. It's a fast,
nimble ship.
But as I've been building it out, one
thing I haven't done is started playing
the all right, engage, pay up. But I
started last week. I mentioned that we
wanted to see you guys making a noise in
the chat and you guys delivered. We had
3x the number of chats during the
stream. So if you're watching us over at
YouTube, then I'll tell you what, I'm
going to give away whoever whoever chats
the most, I'm going to give this very
coin to. How about that?
You better You better You better have a
lot. No, not you, Andrew. You can't have
it. I mean, I I guess you can.
Hold on. Still waiting on
Oh. Oh, man. Nobody can see you, Andrew.
I can see you gesturing and pointing,
but I'm getting it fixed right now live
while we're on the air. Here we go. DZ
Ren
10 years. Ain't that crazy?
How is that metered between platforms?
Good question.
I mean, all things being equal, the
YouTube is the one that we want that
engagement on for sure.
Okay.
And we are Thanks for being patient,
gang. We are waiting on
>> robots.
Robots are hard at work on these. You
know what? Let me do this. I'll go to
Zoom Manager. I can help out.
Uh, let's see. Oh, Joey H66 already has
it. There we go. Submar with engagement.
Yeah, Ninja Andrew is a ninja. Okay,
hold on. I have to be hands off right
now. I've been told by our producer,
Meep Moop. Brian, stop poking things.
And then
any minute now it should figure out your
your
Zoom output.
Although I don't know why I'm not
hearing you, Andrew. That seems like I
should be able to hear you no matter
what. It says you're not muted in in
Zoom. That's another thing that's
happening, guys, is we're moving over to
zoom interfaace.
Let's see.
Oh, wait.
Oh, no.
There we go. So, there's at least the
chat. Sorry about that, guys.
Okay.
So, Andrew, as far as you know, you're
sending audio. Is that right? You can
give a thumbs up if that's the case.
Or are you not hearing me? Oh. Oh, I'm
seeing audio go on on and off.
Okay. Yeah, there we go. Andrew's on the
case solving the puzzle,
it says. Okay. So, it could be on our
end.
Well, let's see.
Oh, no.
Let's see. Open Zoom manager.
Okay. So,
Oh, I know what it is. So, what
happened, Andrew, is last week you
showed up as Andrew instead of uh Andrew
Maine, and now you're here as Andrew
Maine, which is not who it was expecting
is because it was expecting Andrew. Oh,
there we go. I think we just got
Yeah. Right click the WT Andrew,
open source
participant source, Andrew main. Hey.
Hey. All right. And then now we'll see
if we can hear Andrew.
Are you there, Andrew?
>> YES.
>> WIZARDRY.
Got it. We got it. We got it.
Hey, DZ Ren says, "The new layout looks
good, by the way." Thank you very much.
Oh, you know what?
That's a good question. Uh G. James B is
asking about low latency. I thought I
had proclaimed that these should always
be ultra low latency on YouTube. Let me
let me check and see if that that went
through. If I go to the Modern Rogue,
and if not, what I could do is I can
make sure going forward that it's always
set to ultra low latency.
Uh edit
Oh, it does have it at normal latency.
That's a bummer. I don't I don't know if
I should stop. Should I stop it and
start it again?
No. No. Too many too many chaos vectors
doing it that way. All right. So, we'll
just have late latency in the uh weird
things chat on YouTube. And next time
I'm going to make a note. In fact, let
me tell my producer right now. Uh going
forward,
make sure that you stream always enables
ultra low latency
on
uh YouTube channels.
There we go.
All right.
Well, gents, got that throat clearing
out of the way.
There we go. Clear that throat, baby.
That throat. It was unclear, but now
it's very clear.
>> That's awesome. This is a great layout,
man. Ah,
>> I'm really liking it. And uh I'm trying
to I'm trying to figure out what what
things want to do what at which time. I
don't love that it that it that
everything is so tiny boxed in here, but
I'll I'll tweak all of that. Also, I
would love for there to be just a little
bit of perpetual motion, just a little
bit of kinetic energy at all times in
the background, but
>> but we'll get there.
>> That's all luxury stuff.
>> Uh, for today, my good deed was spending
three hours getting the Patreon and all
of the past episodes aligned in the
feed. So, shouts out to our bosses.
>> Awesome.
All right, let me get
>> Yeah, a couple of them have already
uploaded now.
>> Great, great, great. And then once those
are uploaded, I can uh flip the switch
for the patrons. Let me grab my coffee
and then we'll begin.
Oh man,
what are those, Mr. Maine?
>> The glasses we swipe from Eden.
Those
are
>> They actually look good on you. They do.
>> Yeah. We don't know what my occupation
is, but we know it involves pornography
in some capacity.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
It looks like you're really good. If you
like put on those glasses, it's like a
Superman Clark Kent difference of you
with the glasses being a professional
sports better. Like there's like I feel
like I would give you $10,000 to invest
in like you know cricket matches and
Aussie rules football because you
figured out the splits.
>> Yeah. And then I got a little too big
for my britches and I borrowed some
money from some Qataris and now
uh
I'm in rehab hiding out,
>> man. Okay, this is how strong the
magnetic pole for a weird thing scenario
is. We're already started on it. Uh all
right, here go ahead and take us in
Andrew in three, two.
>> Hello and welcome to the Weird Things
podcast. I'm Andrew Maine joined by
Brian Brushwood.
>> Hello. Hello.
>> And Mr. Justin Robert Young.
>> Hello friends.
>> Um, you know, one of the cool things
that happened, which I don't think we
maybe it happened since we did this last
episode. If not, we should talk about
anyways, you know, was was Starship
reaching orbit and releasing a bunch of
Starlinks.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. A lot of crazy Starlink news. I
mean, there's that the the the
deployment of it and Starship being the
one to do it, which is obviously a
gigantic step forward.
>> Uh, and then also the big spectrum buy
uh by
>> by by Space X
SI.
>> Uh, we'll see. That's the one that the
least about. Well, I guess starting with
the lowhanging fruit. I I don't know if
this is an unpopular take or not, but uh
regardless of who's behind it or who
said it first, uh I I think a rebrand of
SI isn't the worst thing in the world
because I know this much. I am tired of
talking about AI because I can't say
those letters without people taking all
their preconceived grievances about some
other thing that isn't the thing I want
to talk about.
Well, look, as a Sports Illustrated
subscriber, uh we can table this
conversation for another day. Uh uh
yeah, Starling looking to kind of step
up and there's a reason why despite
whatever misgivings,
you know, Andrew and I might have had
with um the IPO
and why it was valued at where it was
valued, we were long on the company just
because when you have nearly
exclusive access at their level to
space, you can do really interesting
things. And with an IPOed company, you
can kind of really make some big splashy
uh purchases and decisions. And that
looks like what's happening with
Starlink now looking to get into the
realm of
uh phone service of of mobile internet
service which you know look there's a
long way to go before here or there but
for my money the things that Elon has
been the most successful on uh
historically have been kind of tricky to
understand tricky to figure out big
physical engineering problems. it tends
to be where he can recruit some of the
best talent and he is unafraid to go
allin on big solutions. So I don't know
it's it's it's a really interesting
place for that company in my opinion.
>> Yeah. I think that you know we know it
was weird because we in this position of
like telling people we think the
space-based data centers is and
inference is another thing. If you want
to put a bunch of like GPUs on
satellites and have it serve low latency
stuff that's fine. And I don't I don't
there's a lot of economics why that
doesn't make sense. But the idea of data
centers and running training runs in
space just doesn't make sense because of
the space between satellites. But
bullish overall on when you have cheap
access to space all the other stuff. But
that's the harder thing. It's funny
because like you have to sell to Wall
Street data centers are big. Data center
space free energy. Like oh yeah we like
that. Don't pay attention to physics. If
you're trying to sell them like well you
know when we have access to space we
could build all kinds of materials do
all kinds of stuff. and they're like, I
don't know, egg ahead. I don't know
about that. Kind of have to sell them on
the bolts, the BS to get to the actual
thing, which we're going to start seeing
a lot of that. And and so, yeah, just to
mention is
>> they bought a bunch of uh spectrum,
which is the current spectrum for
Starlink satellites is you need line of
sight. They have to be able to see, you
know, be directly like pointed at a
dish. Doesn't work indoors. Well, they
bought spectrum, which can go through
buildings and stuff. don't know how well
it'll go like deep into whatever but it
is going to be able way to provide
another form of you know maybe you know
there I mean we say cellular but
cellular inherent in the name is the
cells which means small stations locally
whatever but cell phone type service
like literally straight to your phone
you'd be sitting in your office and be
able to get a call
>> how much of it we'll be using satellite
for versus
>> um
local because again a tower is a lot
easier to install than a satellite and I
have to go through this a lot like uh
but we'll see.
>> Well, and it also just kind of opens up
a lot of different lanes for them. Would
it be shocking in a world where this
exists for them to come out with
hardware for a phone that would be, you
know, Grockbot native? You know, you're
you're doing X, Y, and Z. Like that that
seems like something that would be a
possibility. Uh you know, but that's
even terrestrial. I think the reason why
I'm still long on SpaceX AI is is just
like, you know, what can you do when you
own the railroad to the undiscovered
frontier? Uh even if that undiscovered
frontier is a lot of, you know, kind of
bare and expanse, there's still
asteroids. There's a lot there's a lot
you can do. You you can you can anything
that that uh you can do or anybody else
can think of, you're going to get
attacks on. So, uh, that's pretty that's
pretty valuable in my opinion.
>> I I I think that you really hit upon
something, Andrew, when you pointed out
that it's like, man, look, there's
there's numbers and dollars and cents
and maximizing like we're at the part
where they've already invented the
railroad, where they've already invented
railways, they've already connected the
golden spike or whatever, and then it's
like, well, what are you selling? It's
like more of that. exponentially more
for smaller and smaller gaps until
finally all of America is covered. And
it's like
you got anything else? It's like bar
cars. They're like, "All right, now
we're talking luxury rides, smoother,
faster, whatever." And so even if like
for example I guess as long as this
parallel makes more sense when I think
about it you know Amtrak very famously
came out with much faster trains and the
overall speeds improved not at all
because fully 60% of all of the coverage
of the rail networks
had enough of a curve at it that all
that whatever engine was pulling the
train they were all going at the max
speed on that. But selling faster train
is what loosens up those pocketbooks.
And I could see that kind of happening
with the data sensors in space versus
the more important thing of total
coverage for everybody who wants
internet anywhere on the planet.
>> Yeah. And I'll I'll add too. Let me let
me kind of say too like I live in an
area I don't have cell phone coverage.
Literally this tiny little valley,
middle of the Bay Area, no cell phone.
There are parts of San Francisco, parts
of this area. We we I would say that I I
was remiss in how good conventional
cellular coverage is because we've all
been to places where you see buildings
in civilization and your cell phone
doesn't work. And that's a frustrating
thing because economically they're like,
"Yeah, we could add one more tower, but
we won't." And so I'd say that's an
advantage of, you know, a satellite
based phone is, you know, I would be
able to make I think that'll probably be
a service that switches between cell and
satellite, but heck, you know, would I
pay an extra 10 bucks a month to know
that I could always get
>> boy the brief amount of lag that you
just experienced?
>> Like it was a commercial for the service
itself.
>> Like it was a commercial.
>> That was amazing.
>> Indeed. Yeah, Andrew, you froze right in
the middle of you explaining the point
for which uh you were you were making.
Uh
>> oh. Well, let me switch to my Starlink
thing.
>> Switch to Starling. Um well, while
Andrew is doing that, I want to change
the subject a little bit because there's
something that we have not mentioned
on this program,
and that is the plague. My friends, what
the hell is happening? Are we about to
like I I saw
some people that were getting excited
because GTA 6 is coming out next month
and they might get a pandemic so they
can play through all of it in their
house. Guys, I don't think I mean at
least I'm in Texas this time. Like I I
would I would prefer to be in Texas for
this than than uh than something else.
But uh what what are we doing? What's
happening? Are we believing it? Are we
not believing it? What is what is going
on? I need to throw it around the panel
because by the way, there were few
podcasts that were out here at the very
beginning of CO that was talking about
this thing that was happening in China
and the fact that they were building
hospitals in in three days because they
were dealing with so many people. And
that was this podcast. We were very
early on every step of that of that
entire thing. So, what do we think?
Let's throw it around.
>> Uh, first of all, I want to be on the
record that when it comes to plagues, I
avoid them. I avoid them. Like,
>> don't say it because, you know, you're
going to have to say it a million times
if this happens. You know, you just save
those. Save those because you're all
right. Uh, no, I actually am
illinformed. I know that that somebody
got the plague in Russia is uh I this is
normally quite literally Andrew Mane
would be the first person I would call
on this.
Um yeah, I mean the reports were that
get this a facility
uh a pathogen research facility
experimenting with you know gain of
function was trying it with the plague
virus. Apparently some people got sick
and they had to shut down some
hospitals. Then there was kind of a bit
of a news blackout. Um,
but that's never happened before.
According to the smartest people I know,
we've never actually had a major
outbreak. It was natural. We didn't
bother to find out where it came from
because it was natural. Why would you
bother looking at this? Why would you
even care to look for an extra origin
when we told you it's natural, guys?
>> Andrew M.
>> Why do you hate science?
>> Well, so but this one is unambiguously
from a gain of function research lab.
Should we at least skip? I mean
>> it's a Russian wet market. They there
there's
>> uh literally no there's literally
>> with the majong parlor that's what
people forget by the way that I came
from a wet market with a big majong
parlor and it it's one golf swing away
from a certain lab but you know
>> uh no there's look we don't know exactly
what has happened
we do know a few things
there is there was a Facebook post of a
woman who worked in a lab who died that
the Facebook or whatever ever the social
media post within Russia uh said that
she died of the plague and then that was
edited to say she might have died of the
plague. Then there was kind of a news
blackout after there were a few um
hospitals that were shut down. Russia
came out and said that they that people
were being treated with a antibiotic
regimen but that things are under
control. They have not admitted that it
happened because
this woman worked at a plague lab. Could
have happened anywhere. Uh there
apparently have been isolated cases of
this uh in that region of like Siberia
and Mongolia and some of the more uh uh
remote regions where people have eaten
animals that were not properly cooked
that have gotten something along these
lines. But this obviously in a dense
area next to the place where they're
experimenting with the plague um would
be eye raising and certainly memorable
to many of us who went through the uh
this this thing that happened in 2020 in
case you need your head
>> jugg and and again I don't I don't want
to belabor the point too much but if
you've been paying attention reading
emails and everything else like this new
emails surfaced about Fouchy and the
Ebola like a bullet treatment that he
said, "Oh, this is great. Really good."
And probably was like, "This is
terrible. It's not good, but I just need
to support the science, you know, like
just this pattern." Um, and the 1977 uh
Russian flu, that was a big outbreak,
one, you know, a big big pandemic
outbreak. Flu, that virus, the H1, the
H11 virus that they they trained it was
like an exact copy of one from the
1950s, which the only way you can
explain that was it was pulled out of a
freezer. Yeah. MKed around with
>> they were Yeah. And that that's that's
been kind of attributed to like Yeah,
that was a lab leak doesn't get because
you hear lab leak people like, "Oh, your
tinfoil hat, your your your COVID
denier, whatever." It's like,
>> let's put all that on the side. Let's
put all of that aside. Let's just, you
know, you know, 1941, you know, they're
putting people in gas chambers. You're a
conspiracy theorist. They're not doing
that. Nobody would do that. Well, guess
what? Well, I mean, the the the lab leak
thing and I swear we we're not going to
play the reruns on this much longer, but
like
>> labs happen. They happen all the time.
They happen all the time. I'm just they
they have happened in the past, they
will happen in the future. It's why we
need to have not only maximum safety,
but I would say also maximum
transparency that if you want to do
research like this, then we need to be
in a world where you are being as open
and honest as possible. And
unfortunately
both what happened in in China and now
what's happening now is we're dealing
with countries that don't have an
incentive to be maximum honest. They
don't have a free press here.
>> Fouchi and his colleagues literally said
let's not talk here because it's going
to be freedom of information act. We
literally got literally was out there
like and it's frustrating and people
like you defend it but you can't say
they're being open or transparent or
telling us what they actually thought
which they weren't. And that's the
problem here is no things changed. It's
the same people.
>> It's the same community, the WHO, etc.
>> So, oh,
>> so here's the good news about this
plague. You want to hear the good news,
Brian?
>> Oh, heck yeah. Tell me, is it is it
bespectled? Does it know disco moves?
>> It's deadlier,
>> which which I look, I've played Plague
LLC, and uh and as a result, I know that
that's a harder way to play the game
because you you uh to to play this game.
And by the way, I think is it Plague
Inc. or Plague LLC? Plague.
>> So it's deadlier, Brian. And the reason
why that's good news is because it
doesn't have as long of an incubation
period. That was the big tricky thing
with COVID was that it had this very
long, very camouflaged incubation
period. And so spreading it was very
hard to contain because you didn't know
that you had it at the time that you
were spreading it. uh by the time that
you were actually kind of acting sick,
it was you'd probably been spreading it
for days at that point. This is like an
incubation period of a day. So, you
know, we're we're getting to this
probably about a week and a half after
the first report of it, maybe even a
little longer. And there is an argument
to say that if we have not heard about
outbreaks and cases in some of the
places where planes had left from that
remote city, then we might be okay just
because the incubation period on this
goes so fast. And while it does kill
faster uh and it will kill you dead if
you don't get antibiotics into you, um
it we might be okay. We might already be
okay.
>> Yeah. the uh the game that I was trying
to access it is called Plague Inc. I
recommend you guys play it because it
gives you a sense of the the kind of the
laws of gravity when it comes to
infectious diseases. You want something
that's highly infectious but also
doesn't really show itself for a long
time and then when it does it's real bad
real fast.
>> Yeah, I
not a fan. Uh I think that we need to be
vigilant. I think that we need to also
not fall again. I don't want to say
don't fall for bullet. You don't know
like just not not fall for every crazy
idea but not throw out every idea, you
know, not just reject things because
it's coming from one group or the other.
Just because the government says it
doesn't mean it's a lie. Just because
the government says it's a lie doesn't
mean it's a lie, you know. Uh and I
think also like all tone down our sort
of response to things and be kind of
coolheaded. I was frustrated when COVID
first started because um I have a friend
who's a science writer. One of the first
things he said like, "Hey, I don't think
this is gonna be a big deal because we
can we can isolate these things and
figure this stuff out really quickly."
What he didn't count on was we will say
a lot of misinformation within the
scientific community about what was
being caused and a lot of information
being withheld which documented and
things that we were told it's fomite.
It's on the surfaces. They knew by the
time they said that it wasn't. You
remember we told we don't need masks.
>> Oh yeah. As a matter of fact, you were a
bad person if you were using masks
because those belonged to a hallowed
robed person.
>> And then when you did use a mask, you
were belittled for using a mask.
Although in certain small situations,
mask is fine. If you're going to be in a
room for six hours, like yeah, no, a
mask is going to be useless. But you
know, for short periods of time, yeah,
masks are fine. It's it's why they're
used. But the idea that there's some
magical, you know, thing that keeps it
away. And we caught both sides of what I
thought was sort of frustrating. Like,
ah, the masks don't work. I'm like, I
can show you the data that shows there's
a certain amount of help for it, but
you're right. It's not a magic per. It's
frustrating. But anyhow, um, my favorite
thing was there was a science writer
like Yahoo Science or something like
that is talking to a doctor and they
said, "Yeah, listen, there it's not I
don't think it's going to be an issue.
you know, there were only like 16 cases.
You know, there only like 16 cases this
week and there were four last week. It
doesn't seem like that many. And I'm
like, um, that's terrible by this rate,
you know? You know, like I said, if
you're telling me that because this
rate, if you look at the rate at which
it's spreading and and they're like,
well, this is what they said, whatever
kind of thing. And then like, of course,
a month later, we're in a lockdown. And
I'm like, yeah, like maybe,
>> you know, let's keep our heads. So
>> yeah,
>> I I I got a question for you guys and
and this is look,
it's too early to panic, but if one were
to sketch out,
>> never too early to panic, Brian. Never
too early.
>> Well, but it isn't too early to think
ahead of of of possible things. Like
that's a real conundrum. We're just
coming out of a failed dress rehearsal
for an infectious plague pandemic. And
so we all have recency biases for who
for you know what we just saw we're all
going to assume. And given the fact that
the problem was poor communication
before how do you
like like how can any institutions
possibly get people on board when
everybody could select their own version
of reality? I I don't know. And I'm
asking from a practical standpoint. I
think honestly the biggest difference is
COVID was also very uniquely
it was dis as if it were designed to so
discontent.
Uh it was deadly. It was mostly deadly
with people that had either
were old and and kind of infirmed or had
coorbidities. Right? So if you are just
a human and I'm not saying this is right
or good or moral right but if you look
around to everybody that you see I I
think it is human instinct to say okay
if I if I am healthy and I get sick will
I die or if my child gets sick will they
die those are the two most primary
things and if you don't have a
coorbidity and you're not old then you
don't think that that's going to be as
big of a deal and eventually
that will shape the discourse uh
especially if there are
blanket mitigation efforts that are put
on put on everybody.
I said from the beginning if if CO
killed children
there would be cops with guns making
sure that nobody left their house for a
month. Like it I think it would be a
very very different public conversation.
But we knew fairly early on that if you
were young and healthy, it wasn't going
to affect you in the same kind of way.
And whether or not that wound up
filtering its way as fast as it should
have to
authorities that were uh you know
figuring out mitigation efforts, that's
another question. But like we knew it,
the humans knew it. And I think that
caused a lot of the angst. if this does
injure everybody on a level that is
different than co uh 19 did and so I
think we you know we would um I think we
would react differently and also because
the incubation period is so short uh
there would actually be I think probably
a better argument for a shorter harder
lockdown but like I don't know I don't
know how you sell it right now I guess
there there is the tact tactical
advantage of if this is a known critter
with known rates of behavior then that
that empowers folks to make better
informed decisions.
>> I don't I don't know. I mean the problem
we saw you even as a short incubation
the problem in the 90s we worried a lot
about this stuff because of air travel
>> and and you know in 12 hours I can be on
an airplane and sitting in a stadium
and and that's that's the issue where it
gets kind of scary. It's one thing when
people are limited on foot and how far
they move. Siberia is, you know, at
least it's Siberia is even by plane.
It's 12 hours from anywhere. But, uh,
that's the challenge. And also,
lockdowns were a joke from the
beginning, you know, from we watched all
of our politicians not do them. You
would see certain countries that were
doing super super strict lockdowns and
still get breakouts because you'd find
out the track certain politicians and
other people and you'd find out like,
yeah, not for you, you know, not not for
me, but for you. Um
>> I I I don't know. I I don't I don't
know.
I don't know what you do. I I don't
know. I think you just you just you know
let you know and we had the last time
too like you know I know more elderly
people that died after the shot than
died from COVID. I'm not making any
statement to how I feel about the shot.
I I've had MDs tell me they refused the
shot and I'm like well shucks. I'm not
an MD. What do I know? you know, and
that was the hard part was a lot of
people saying this and tell us different
things. And so,
>> yeah, I
I I I think that we would be hurt the
most
not having done a full truth and
reconciliation as to how we handled
COVID if we were to face it again.
Because part of the reason why COVID was
what it was was because we drew up a
pandemic plan because George W. Bush
read a book about the Spanish flu and
was, you know, went to his his team.
This is late into his second term. And
he went to his team and said, "Hey, what
happens if this happens tomorrow?" And
so they drew up a lot of stuff that was
based on lessons that were learned
during the Spanish flu.
No, I'm not to question the
infallibility of George W. Bush, who
otherwise never made a mistake in his
presidency, but like I I don't know
whether or not
all of those lessons were applicable to
2020. I don't know if they are the right
lessons going forward. I would say that
there's a lot that we could learn,
right, wrong, indifferent, from hey,
what worked? What didn't work? Now that
we're a few years out, how fast did the
economy come back? How fast did the
economy not come back? What do we know
we're sacrificing for sure if we do
this? And what changes based on what we
just saw? We haven't done it. I I do
think and this is where I will do you
know to use a u a medical metaphor a pox
on both of our houses in terms of the
political will there is not been much of
a desire
to do
a real thorough independent let's open
up the the you know all all the cabinets
and and take a look at what we were
talking about internally what we said
publicly and and get some rules of the
road going forward. We've done it in
fits and starts and it's largely largely
happened by way of u you know partisan
uh desires which I'm glad that the
information is out there but I don't
think that it brings us to any kind of
national understanding in the way that
say the 9/11 report gave us at least a
touchstone that we could work off of.
And we are poorer for it and we're more
and we're poorer for it now when we look
at like wow could we be facing another
one of these this quick? Uh boy, it'd be
nice if we had learned some lessons.
>> Yeah. The And that's my like it's a
great question because I like it's
frustrating because like a lot of people
like the regular I would say mainstream
media hasn't covered the Rand Paul
hearings like at all and like like I
asked people I have no awareness what
all the document disclosures all the
stuff that just show how the system fell
apart.
takeaways from, you know, the 911
hearings were one of the biggest ones
was, you know, in the 90s we put
together that we put this wall between
FBI and CIA, domestic and international,
for a reason that sort of made sense at
the time is we didn't we we because part
of part of the real reason was we gave
we gave, you know, you know, our foreign
intelligence agencies all these
incredible powers of wiretapping, all
this sorts of stuff that we didn't want
being used domestically, right? So they
said, "Okay, we'll put the SWAL in
between there about what information
gets there." there. But then you had
people like, "Hey, uh, we wiretapped,
you know, some people from outside
inside the US doing some very suspicious
stuff. Can report it at the FBI if it's
like we don't want it, we can't handle
it." And and it created this very, very
sticky situation. We now have, for
better or for worse, a system at which
that information in theory can go
backwards and forward. So, you know, we
probably lost a ton of our freedoms and
all that when it comes to privacy and
stuff, although we can still use
encryption stuff, which is the other
side of it. But that was one of the big
things that came out from there is you
had two different groups that were not
talking to each other. There may be some
better medium, definitely a better one
than where we have now, but at least
that stuff gets reported. You noticed,
you know, a lot of lot of lot of
terrorism stuff kind of kind of moved
outside or it became lone wolf kind of
stuff after that. Um bigger plots are a
little bit harder, whatever reason. But
anyhow, the idea now is do we see that
cooperation? I don't think we have that.
We have some agencies that have come out
internally and said, "Yeah, we think
COVID was a lab leak." Other ones like
Ham and Haw, whatever. There's not that
kind of communication. There's not that
kind of transparency. There's not this
ability, you know, to sort of say, "Hey,
I screwed up. Let's fix this." You're
still incentivized to cover things up,
which is really what scares me.
>> Yeah. Well, and I guess that's uh it's,
you know, oftentimes knowing there's a
problem is the first step to fixing it,
but I feel like we all know there's a
problem, and I, for one, have no idea
how to fix it.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, I I think it it's transparency
and stuff. I think that it's like we we
had a number of people going out of
their way on our end to hide stuff, to
obiscate. And
I I'm not I'm not after like war crimes
trials, but I want that exposed and
offered and to tell like, hey, listen,
if you do this sort of thing, if you go
out of your if you're a public official,
>> if I'm hearing if I'm hearing this, it's
like if we increase the social cost to
deceive the American populace and even
if it's in retrospect by by uh by airing
all if if we establish that look man,
tell a fib you're going to get found
out. If there's something you knew at
this point, your best strategy becomes
to tell what you know while you know it,
right?
>> I think I think I think part of it
though is you need the system to be
willing to turn the sunshine in on
itself. And and what we saw over the
COVID situation was you had a lot of
very entrenched bureaucracies that
believed had deliluded in my opinion had
deluded themselves to the purity of
their own mission to the point where
they would engage not only in willful
deception but also in ongoing cover up
because they would afraid they were
afraid it would erode the larger uh uh
mission going forward. And then it
became grafted on political parties
because that's a great way if you need
fighters then align yourself politically
one way or another and make it a wedge
issue where people are going to fight
about it and now you're not going to get
anything close to a consensus where the
system says hey where the CDC where the
NIH or sorry not the NH yeah the NIH um
we're going to do a gigantic afteraction
report. We're turning over everything
that we possibly can and we're going to
to, you know, look for things that would
otherwise be going to intelligence
agencies to make sure that we can
declassify everything that's possible to
declassify so we can understand our own
process and you can understand why we
made the decisions that we made, why we
made the recommendations that we made,
how we communicated to all of your local
officials that were making the other
thing. Because that was another big
question is like all right well Dr.
Fouchy goes out on television and says
that there's a certain level of immunity
that needs to happen. How does that
affect what happens in my neighborhood
if I live in California or Texas or
Connecticut or Florida? Like there was a
lot of opaque element where nobody
wanted to take credit or blame for it.
And I think that we do need to have
that. And right now we don't have that
system. We still have a system where you
have bureaucracies that really want to
protect themselves. And I don't think
that it's an evil thing from a
motivation standpoint. I think that they
do genuinely believe that they are doing
the most important work. And so they
that the things they need to do are only
because other people are trying to do
even meaner things. But boy do I hate
it. And that's the only way I think that
it changes is if you incentivize the
system to audit itself.
>> Yeah. It it's it's we have what became
very clear is how much it went to
protect like we didn't it was like
independent researchers that pointed out
that Wuhan applied for gain of function
research grants from the eco health
alliance that we provided grant support
to them in the past that we had our own
we had had our own misgivings about the
quality of the lab but we continued to
fund them that was not disclosed openly
that was things that people had to dig
out and find that sort of stuff which is
scary it's scary that if some concerned
people didn't say let's you'll find out
what's going on there. We wouldn't know.
Um,
you know, and it's it's I don't know. We
can draw go. My my last thing is like I
do said this before. You know, years
ago, Michael Shurmer kind of warned
about the the idea of scientism and
said, you know, like ask me what I
thought. And I'm like, well, I think
anything pro-science is great. Like, why
is that a problem? Yay, science,
whatever. And I didn't I was young and
naive and didn't quite understand really
what that meant. And that meant that
anything that clothes itself in science,
whether it's a PhD or an institution or
whatever, we often just take, well,
these are scientists and and why would I
be skeptical of that? We forget these
are people with motivations like we do
and they have their own incentives. And
I certainly am going to give more
credibility to somebody with a PhD than
without in an area of that person's PhD.
Uh
but it's not complete and automatic. You
know, it's not it's not a thing that I
say, well, I can't question it. I would
be hesitant to without good reason. And
I think that's a thing I think was very
frustrating. I think that that's sort of
been a political divide as some people
like why would you qu like I I believe
science. It's like science is a tool. I
believe the tool works. I think public
health is very unfortunately
>> dictated by the public which means you
need to understand the public's
perspective and you know Brian and I
were at an event not too long ago where
there were people getting an award and I
refused to stand up very interesting
>> it was I I was man I was proud of Justin
cuz he resisted a magnetic pole to do
like the rest of of the group did. It's
uh I think that that tri the tribalistic
instinct is so magnetically powerful and
of course and that one I legit don't
know how to fix because I mean that
that's as old as mankind group is
>> the thing the thing that really I I
would have a critique with the people
that were getting the award and I don't
even want to name them because I don't
want to be a thing here but like yeah
>> I think that they meaningfully eroded
public trust in how our government
communicates these things. And I think
that that's incredibly dangerous. And to
demonize and to talk down to people when
there's something this important on the
line is reckless. Is I mean, when if and
when this were to happen again,
I'm going to the Rizzler and I'm asking
the Rizzler what his followers are
saying. I need to understand. I don't
want to give celebrities a a script to
read from and then shame them if they
don't and exile them if they don't.
Like, this is something that needs to
exist in a real world where
everybody needs to hear a thing that
matters to them and they need to be
heard. And that's the biggest problem
that we had was that the the science
the communicators were in my opinion
extraordinarily flawed and
uh I think it the the the tail wagged
the dog. I think our our response was
also flawed. Like and then it became
about digging in in a very political way
in the way that like
if your candidate's missing for 14 days,
you stand there and say he has the flu.
If your candidate cheated on his wife
and then got divorced on biblical
grounds, you say he's a good public
servant and he's a good father. Like
these are just random examples. random
examples
>> from the ether. Not
>> I'm a very creative man who comes up
with these are right from the dome.
>> That makes sense.
>> You but like like you do that
politically because you're in actual
information warfare and I understand
that it can be messy and I understand
that it can be uncomfortable to tell the
truth when you're trying to deal with a
very large population on something very
serious. But the cost of not doing it is
them just tuning you out. And that's
what I would worry about the most if
let's say something deadlier were to
come from Russia with love is that now
there's a segment of the population that
just doesn't believe the government at
all whatsoever. And you want to know
what they got reason to.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. I remember you guys that that
event came up and I was pinging you guys
because like it was just it was very
much a let's circle the wagons around
these guys that we agree with because
they're like us and
>> circle would would be the way that I
started a phrase that I describe.
Um anyhow on the bright news um
>> on the bright side uh
>> oh I I mean I mean I'll tell you okay
what's cool I'll tell you no I'll give
you the bright side okay uh we have
entered an era era of incredible
acceleration with the capabilities of AI
had we had codeex chat GPT clawed six
years ago I think it would I've seen
this personally like the acceleration in
scientific development and research. I
think we're we're one it could find some
dangerous stuff for us maybe before we
want it but I think it help us a lot
too. Um there's this has been a very big
week for science on one hand you know
Zuckerberg uh Mark and Priscilla
Zuckerberg you know donated like a
billion plus dollars to an initiative
for open public health open health data
open science data for like biology part
of their biohub initiative to like cure
all disease and that's been a big thing.
Other companies came I think Anthropic
contributed and other ones have done
that which is great. Um and opening I
dropped a bunch of um math proofs like
300 plus math proofs in some really
significant ones and man the mathematics
community handling it totally well
totally a great example of how science
should embrace new science. give us a
window into this because not everybody
is either a following like I'm following
it in the AI adjacent version of it
where it's largely a bunch of AI people
that are very excited that this tech is
capable and many of them are engineers
and very math focused but uh but you are
more dialed in on this explain what is
happening and the larger conflict
>> so they went in and they looked at a lot
of open problems or questions in math
and they worked with a group of
mathematicians say okay we we we've used
AI I to come up with really interesting
sometimes solutions or observations of
these problems. Most of these things
very very complicated stuff. I watch the
I watch the explainer video and then I
need an explainer video for the
explainer video you know about some of
these things. But some of the stuff is
you know some of the stuff we've seen is
simpler stuff like packing you know how
what's the maximum way you can fit
squares into something like how like are
there more efficient ways to factor
certain things. There have been some
very very interesting things they found
that they actually may have some
applications to it. And some
mathematicians, a lot of them like this
is great. Some other people, there's a
group that just popped up which is like
the association of like human
mathematicians. They start off like we
did not ask for this. I'm like I was in
there. They're literally they're like we
did not mathematicians did not ask for
this. I'm like what a great way to we
did not want this knowledge. And there's
there's a criticism from mathematicians
because they're like, well, these are a
bunch of proofs that are kind of messy
and whatever. And the job of a
mathematician is to try to make these
pro proofs more explainable and do all
this sort of stuff. And I'm like, guess
what? That job's still there. You know,
I saw something that made its way
around. There was imagine if there was
a, you know, uh, a a dig, you know,
paleontology dig where they they dug up
a, you know, 100 meters of ground and
just shook it out. all the bones fell
out, you know, like that's what happened
here. I'm like, no, that's destructive.
Math is still there. You can go back and
check the math. Nothing got destroyed.
All we did was get some X-rays and some
other stuff of what's in the ground
here. Maybe it's kind of fuzzy for you.
Maybe it's not quite as clear. Guess
what? You can still go put in there, but
you know where to dig now.
>> Well, and it also, more importantly, it
informs the path going forward. you now
have an option where you can avoid
accidentally sawing right through
important stuff because you have a huge
dig and and as we've seen with YouTube,
you know, um somebody will do something
amazing where they'll balance seven
chairs instead of six on their nose. And
the moment that it's proven that
somebody could do it with seven, then 10
minutes later somebody else does it
because it's known for a fact that it's
possible. and the number of things that
people now because look we're we're all
gamblers with our time, energy, and
effort. We don't want to pursue dead
ends and the number of well-informed
lanes forward just massively continues
to explode, which is deeply encouraging.
>> Yeah. I I you know, it's funny. I've
heard somebody like, "Oh, well, you
know, you know, everybody's ridiculing
the mathematicians, but wait until it
comes for your vocation." I'm like, "Us
three?" like it's happened multiple
times.
>> Oh yeah.
>> And I think I think a lot and we've
we've discussed this on the program, but
to anybody who's new, we may come across
as callous or unmoved by things and that
is not out of a lack of understanding.
It's not out of a caring about the
impacts of stuff, but but just more from
uh the three of us. If we were to list
all of our jobs that we've ever had, all
the roles that we've ever had,
they would be in the hundreds and 99% of
them that role no longer exists. In
fact, the roles that we play right now
on the 10,000 first episode of this
program are very different roles than we
played in the very beginning because all
the roles have changed.
>> Yeah. I've gone through like watching,
you know, the changes in the
entertainment industry to I was a guy
that did we, you know, Justin and I made
money making magic DVDs. Magic DVDs were
great. Really good business. You come up
a thing, you can print it, cost a buck
to produce it, you can come spend time
on it. Then file sharing came out and
file sharing destroyed that industry.
Like effective everything had to have a
gimmick because otherwise nobody would
buy it. a physical gimmick that couldn't
be and then even then you started being
able to 3D print those gimmicks which
changed the calculus.
>> Yeah. And I I I the only things that
kind of survived were like that and and
you know what was my attitude? I'm like
this sucks but the world's better off
for having this other thing and I wasn't
like I didn't go look at anything I
said. I never said stop peerto-peer stop
peerto-peer. Never. Never. Even though I
think that it hurted a lot of artists
and stuff too. Uh, it's funny. There's a
thing that shows like people like, "Why
have concert tickets gotten so
expensive?" Oh, I don't know. Remember,
you'll make it up on touring. This is
called making it up on touring, folks.
You know, like literally you can trace
trace the trajectory of revenue. Like,
we'll figure it somewhere. And that's
the thing. And it's like I was like,
"Yeah, okay. Sucks." But I would never
have lobbyed or said or pushed to change
that, you know, because that's not
right. That's that's restrictive. I
don't want to, you know, people other
people benefit from these kinds of
technologies, whether it's, you know,
making free phone calls, whatever. You
know, the internet, the internet was
very damaging in some respects to like
my magic business, but, you know,
okay, I'll take the benefit. You know,
it took a while.
>> I I think that that we've always been
extremely populist when it comes to
information. You know, even the first
segment of this very program, we talked
about like give people the actual truth
to play with. And uh you know when I get
in the most trouble, take scam school or
what have you. It's because some people
would very much like to have fewer
competitors. And meanwhile, that's great
for a magician, but not good for magic.
And so the the the gotchu that people
loved to hit me with during the scam
school, peak scam school days, was would
you like it if I taught how your tricks
were done? I said, "There is literally
not one thing in my entire stage show
that I've not already taught on this
program." And now, not directly. I
didn't show the routine and then say
it's just this, but but there is not one
I I left nothing on the table. Uh and
it's because I knew that I had to have
the courage of of my own convictions on
that and I feel like everybody else on
this panel has done the same.
>> Yeah. I I think the problem with
this specific issue with the mass stuff
is kind of endemic to what I would see
from the LLM revolution at its very
beginning. And really the reason why
there are kind of two frontier labs that
are running ahead of anybody else is
because the the LLM revolution has had a
contentious relationship with academia
from the very beginning. largely because
there were a lot of very very very
smart, extraordinarily educated people
who were in positions of academic tenure
that did not believe this was the way
forward for this technology. And quite
frankly, they were wrong. Like it turns
out scaling up LLMs is a huge part of
where we are going as a society. Uh and
and that's that's what it is. Now, why
is does that matter? It matters because
there were some companies that hired
some of those really great minds that
had a longer time getting out of the
gate because they wouldn't redouble
their efforts to go where the puck was
going. And and and that's why OpenAI
benefited. That's why then anthropic
splitting out of Open AI benefited. They
knew where the north star was and they
were running to it. They didn't have to
have an internal battle over their uh
their their priors. They have their own
internal battles, but at least they were
on the the the path going forward. And
so now you have a a a field, not the
last by the way, but right now it's math
that they are dropping crazy proofs like
just insane things that would be
people's entire careers that they would
spend working on these kinds of things.
And what they see is a loss of that
time. In the same way that to use the
archaeologist uh metaphor,
there would be x amount of time spent on
applying for a grant and y amount of
time scouting an area and z amount of
time uh getting the staff up and then
you would see whether or not the the
bones were where you thought they were.
and instead somebody just found the
Minecraft god map and said, "Oh, here
are where all the bones are all over the
world." Now, to Andrew's point, yeah,
you still got to dig them up. There's
still a lot of work to be done. There
still is a huge field. You still have
time, but it's not what they thought.
And I think we're buckle up. We're we're
going to see more of this in certain
fields that are there for to to kind of
>> you know think about these things in
capital letters.
>> Two things too that are interesting. One
is that um when they did the previous
Nevier Stokes they talked about using
you know thousands of agents and stuff
and huge compute cost and a question
that got asked was they just did that.
Do do you need as much did you need all
of that to go do it for these? They said
they used the equivalent of just asking
like a GPT whatever the current model
internal model pro version was and gave
it one prompt and it did that. So the
cost of doing this were way way less in
the results. You know, another
mathematician looked at this and came up
an evaluation very interesting, very
useful.
>> If you were going to try to solve a lot
of math problems, there's a certain
category of math problem that was very
underreresented there.
>> Brian, you want to guess?
>> Uh, I have no idea.
>> Cryptographic.
>> Oh dear.
>> Uh, as in like intentionally let's not
try to
go break or do that. And also, you know,
the cryptographic stuff is one of the
things that the government will say you
can't release this, you can't publish
this. And that's the thing is the
realization that um you know, we've
already realize that certain protocols
may actually be solvable, you know, with
with under with, you know, human level
amount or you know, meaning you know,
not impossible levels of compute. And
that's a very interesting thing is that
that's the thing that the labs are now
going to have to say, okay, do we do we
want to publish that we figured out a
way to crack this key or there's some
sort of way that it could be done
faster, etc. Which gets into a another
tricky sort of
>> interesting because if there's a way to
crack a certain key or what have you,
then there's it's we get into kind of
philosophical notions of a platonic
truth. There is a platonic truth out
there that this code can be broken and
then but there's an artificial barrier
where it's like anybody who figures it
out, let's say some men in black say
you're going to not release that. That
doesn't change the fact that now anybody
can press a button and say uh over there
is there a platonic truth that isn't
being discussed about and they can they
could keep on finding it.
>> Yeah. Yeah, I mean the the the idea is
that that that's real and the idea is to
say that hey, you should probably change
your codes now is the kind of the thing
like because that that's sort of what
the the purpose it can serve is that
because if I say hey there is one string
of numbers that will train Brian
Brushwood's bank accounts into your own
untraceably completely in a matter of
seconds. Um, I'm going to tell Brian and
say, "Brian, um, we we're going to we're
going to try to hold off on this for a
while, but people are going to figure it
out after a certain point."
>> And what's interesting, it's like as as
we hear the chatter surrounding Qday,
the day that quantum compute makes it
possible to break a whole bunch of
things. Uh, I would think that just the
confidence that that day was coming,
would completely undermine all
cryptocurrency markets and so on. But I
I can understand that we already know
what's on the other side of it. It's
just another, you know, maybe it's as
simple as one-time pads that are locked
in a physical safe somewhere. We just go
back to a case where yes, a robot could
break it, but it would have to send
other armed robots in to rob the bank to
get the piece of paper that blah blah
blah blah blah.
>> Yeah. I
I know where a crypto guy lives and he
has a guy who heads a crypto firm and he
has 24-hour security in his driveway.
>> I believe it.
>> It's like
not anywhere but I know a guy seen it.
Uh and uh yeah because that that becomes
the other vector. So yeah, um I am
excited because I think that we are now
I've been using for the last week or so
I've been using Astra for 3D printing
and doing all kinds of crazy stuff there
is incredibly capable of doing that and
I think we're going to be entering in
this era of of building things and I'm
excited about physical I know a lot of
people into AI are now buying 3D
printers and I think that we're going to
be exciting the times ahead of us. I
think that uh so here's here's a take
that I only now am having the courage to
say out loud but uh when we were very
very young you know one of my favorite
episodes of the modern rogue was when we
pulled out the old radio shack 201 kit
and what I loved about that and what the
it is the single most commented upon
piece of media in the history of this
channel and every comment looks the
same. I had one of these as a kid. Led
me to become an electrical engineer. Led
me to become a quantum physicist.
Whatever. But what is gorgeous about
that thing is that it's it's something
you could put in your hand and
understand. Wire goes in here, variable
comes out, you can twist the knob, you
can change the amount of light, etc.,
etc. Uh that deeply experienced
understanding opened up a world of
otherwise extremely dense electronics
and electrical engineering in the lives
of an entire generation. For a while
when when our generation was in college,
when we were shortly out of school,
everything was integrated circuits.
everything. You could open a thing and
stare at the components, but only an
extreme rare group of people versent in
various scripting languages could dare
to repurpose anything. Like essentially
once something broke, it broke and you
threw it away and bought another one.
And what we're seeing now just over the
last two years with the again that
Prometheium moment that democratization
that populist movement of power and
truth into the hands of anybody where
I'm reading about this old dot matrix
printer hasn't worked since my Apple 2e
died. Uh something something vibe code
and now it's making stuff again. We I
mean not to toot our own horns, but we
called the amount of latent
infrastructure out there that's just
waiting to have new life breathed into
it. Like we're all sitting on pioneer
probes in our own backyards. And now we
have the ability to tell the wizarding
box what to do with it to make it alive
again. And I I I as excited as I am to
see what can change in the world uh by
solving you know your fancy math
problems or world whatever I'm even more
excited to see the second order changes
of what happens when my kids generation
grow up empowered to do things without
intermediaries.
I've got a couple old Macintoshes that
like I never bothered to get rid of that
like like there was there was an Amazing
Stories episode with Mark Hamill years
ago where he kept all the crap from his
youth and then
>> it was all like, you know, rare comic
books and stuff and I had them and then
uh I got myself a laser cutter, right?
Cuz why not? It's like $300 to buy a
laser cutter. Literally cut stuff with
lasers. Like that's the future
childhood. Yeah.
>> Yeah. And it's like, "Oh, what do I
Well, you can take the little SD card
swap." I'm like, "That sucks." And I'm
like, "I really just want to have it on
the network." And I'm like, "Oh, I can
take my old Mac as long as it runs
codecs or just probably just put it in
there and connect it to it and let it
connect it and run it and just have
another codec session run it." And now
I've got this. It's a mini network PC,
you know? Like that just to me was like,
"Oh my god." Like,
>> wait, wait, wait. Walk me through that.
So, you had Codeex write something that
is running on the Mac and now it can
control the Mac.
>> So, what I Okay. All I All I needed was
there's a USB input on the on the the
laser cutter, but I have it in my
garage. Okay. Um and with the with the
laser cutter in my garage, my main
computer's here. How do I control it?
There's no Wi-Fi on the laser cutter.
Well, I just plug it into an older Mac
that has Wi-Fi and this Mac talks to
that Mac and says, "Go do this, go do
that." And I can just I can even have
codecs running on that other Mac
>> because the intelligence is in the
codecs.
>> Got it. Well, and what's funny is I was
thinking all the way back to like a 1984
level Mac and I and I was trying to
picture how that could work, but then
just now even speaking it aloud, it's
like we live in an age where you plop
down a video camera and you pl you
attach the a literal robot arm over the
mouse and keyboard and it can do it. I
mean, that's those interfaces are are
suddenly legitimate.
Yeah, it's it's interesting to see like
how like we can make use of stuff using,
you know, codecs to create apps and
stuff. It's amazing. Now, it just the
limits our imagination.
>> Yeah.
>> Robotics is going to come fast.
>> Yeah. How do we feel about that? Are you
are you are you smiling or frowning when
you see your first dog patrolling the
neighborhood?
I'm I'm excited. I
I look around like we just we just had
our our flooring put in. Like we just
had new stairs and wood floors put in in
our house, right? And
the problem is we had great guys coming
and do it. I've got neighbors that got a
backyard construction project. They want
to put in a mini mini putt putt golf
course in their backyard, right? And
guys, this thing's been going on for
five months.
five month construction project for a
very simple project.
>> There are two problems.
>> One is uh materials sometimes waiting
for materials. Two is the way
contractors work is contractors will say
yes I'll do a thing and then they'll
send as few laborers as they can to get
the thing done and keep the project
moving along because they don't want to
say no I can't do it in the 3-month
period that you need it done in. So
they'll just say yes to you and then you
find out that these projects just take
they they will they're fear they don't
want to lose the project. So they'll
tell you and they know that you're not
going to bring another product to them
for a couple years anyway. So they don't
mind lying to you about how long it
takes. That's a common common thing. And
I see this I have another neighbor
that's had for well over a year cons you
like building an ADU in his backyard.
Incredibly long period of time. Now in a
world of robotics
I'm going to call the same dude to do
this for me. I'm going to pay him a lot
less but I'm going to call them a lot
more often do stuff. There's a lot of
stuff I like to do in my house, but I'm
not excited about having a contractors
for another two weeks hammering nails
and stuff and doing stuff and keeping me
awake, whatever. You know, if I could
have a robot work crew that only worked
when I was out of the house, that would
be amazing. And I don't care. I'll pay
somebody to do this to do this and that
guy will make as much or more money as
before. I think that people don't
understand there are way more things
that are we want fixed in the world than
being fixed right now. If we made a
list, if everybody made a list of all
the things you want done around your
house from a construction point alone,
that list is never going to end. And by
the time you get everything done, you're
going to do that. I think we have to
look what real abundance means. Real
abundance doesn't mean we reach
perfection, we're done. Real abundance
means I change it all the time and keep
going from there. So, I'm excited. I
think robotics will create even more
opportunity than before because there's
stuff I just don't do now because it'll
take forever. it'll take too long or
it's it's I would pay 2,000 for this but
not 20,000.
>> I I just look at
what happens
what opens up when you unlock a thing
that had been locked by constraints
before. How much of our reality is
constructed by
just a bottleneck that doesn't, you
know, really say anything about us as a
society or as humans? It's just some law
of economics that certain things can't
get here at a certain speed. And what
happens when you change that? What
happens when you have things that are
available for cheaper? What happens when
you have things that are available
faster? what happens, you know, like I
know this is what I think has been the
reason why you see so many true
believers about AI and LLMs is because
people have felt a change in their
day-to-day life based on how this
technology is being used and their
capability
uh because of it.
What happens when that's open to
physical things too? when it's not just
knowledge work like that's
what is Brian's Brian has a property
that he can either
maintain once or twice a year if he's
got the money and he knows that he has
company coming or if he knows that he's
not throwing events on the property then
it's going to get a little shaggy and
then when something happens you can
bring somebody in to to mow it. What
happens when there's three robots that
can actually clear brush every single
day? How much does it look like
Disneyland? Now, does it make Brian say,
"Oh, actually, you want to know what?
This place looks amazing.
I've always gotten emails from people
that love Scam School that they want to
have, you know, a birthday party or
something like that. I can now open this
up and now I don't have to think of
like, oh, I gotta call on Alisa and I
gotta talk to this person and I don't
want someone to trip and I wonder if
it's a legal thing if we have kids
running around the back. No, you could
literally do all of the same safety
automation that Disney has in a cheap
way that you would have never thought of
before because the cost would have been
so prohibitive. There's just a lot that
kind of gets unlocked and it just
reminds me of
eras of great expansion in our past.
Like what was the world before the
interconnected highway system? None of
us know. None of us really have any idea
what that was like uh uh before it was
very cheap and easy to go do it.
>> Kill the small town though. That was the
the motor lodge and all these other
things. Like there's it's interesting.
you'll you'll start to we forget that
there was an entire economy of like
really cheap motor lodges or things like
this outside towns because when you
travel because when it took you know 4
days to go from LA to Fresno by car even
you had to sleep somewhere and and that
but those places also became you know
places of illreute and whatnot like
literally there's entire economies we
forgot about like small towns that exist
that don't exist anymore Pardon me.
Getting excited there. That's the change
that happened, you know. Um,
>> but even that, you know, when I'm when
I'm in Ohio, my uh my my wife's family
lives just outside of Mansfield, right?
And Mansfield is,
you know, the town square looks like
Back to the Future. Like, it is very
much that kind of model of like this
idllic 1950s Americana.
uh you know small sometimes ethnic town
in in Ohio, Pennsylvania, like that area
and it's fallen on hard times because it
used to be powered by factories that
don't exist anymore, right? But like
what happens when you've got robots that
can maintain all these buildings? What
happens when now what used to be there's
this old high I think it's a high
school. looks like a high school, but
like it's it is right out of central
casting like a big, you know, circle
like like but it it looks like an old
high school from a movie or something
like that. Like what happens when that
could be a hotel? What? And and and the
retrofitting of it isn't going to take
three years. It's going to take six
months because you're able to do it.
Like I don't know. It just opens up so
many different possibilities.
Uh because Mansville is only like an
hour outside of Cleveland. You could
very much commute. You you can commute
to Cleveland or to Columbus from there,
but like what if you were able to live
in a ballin ass house and it was just
that much easier and it was that much
cooler. There was more stuff to do
locally. I don't know. I just think it
it just opens up so many things that we
haven't even thought of. There are a lot
of businesses and things that we like,
you know, comic book shops or record
stores or stuff like that that are very
hard to operate because of the cost of
rent and labor and these other things.
But when you can use robotics and stuff
like that to lower the cost of that
stuff, um, do you make these things more
viable? A lot of businesses today like
four guys, you know, three guys talking
on a podcast, you know, as a business
sounded crazy as 15 years ago.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh, you know, somebody says, "We're
going to have the kids screw up never
know what the world was like before AI."
Kids don't know what the world was like
before the cell phone. They don't
>> I don't know what the world was like
before television. I was fascinated to
find out that my dad had memories
without television. I couldn't even
conceive of it.
Yeah,
I mean my daughter my daughter's not
going to know a world before AI.
>> Like the the the way we motivate her to
brush her teeth is that we make a
picture of her and a cow from a Spanish
children's song that she likes every
morning. Every morning I'm like
>> a little as motivation.
>> Uh no original IP. Original IP. We have
created our own very distinct IP. It's a
it's a it's a common song. We've
invented our own thing around it. Uh uh
get out of here, copy a wire. Um uh uh
no, like every morning I'll be like,
"Hey, do you want to brush your teeth?"
"No." "Do you want to make a picture of
you and Lvakalola?" "Well, can we do it
while I brush my teeth? Let's go." Like,
it's the way we motivate her. It's the
way that she does it. And she and she is
obsessed with it in the way that she's
obsessed with anything else that she
sees on the internet. And it's like that
is something that is unique to her. We
have made that for her. and she's never
going to know a world where that's not
the norm.
>> Yeah. I
I think that we we post scarcity is not
a real thing and it frustrates me being
the barrier and people talk about it and
then you bring up things like so we all
get front row seats at the World Cup
like well you could do VR like nope then
you're saying we don't so you know we
all get a vacation on the coolest beach
in Hawaii. Well no but you okay so
that's not real. So we all get one of
the limited edition thousand designer
handbags. Well we can make more. Oh,
that's not this. We all get to live in
San Franc. Nope. Can't do that. And you
start to realize there's all kind We've
invented all kinds of scare. Like I
think we're kind of pseudo post
scarcity, too. If you if you plan your
your if the first, you know, 10 years
from 15 to 25 go right for you or 10 20
to 30, then you're in that phase. Uh you
just can't want a lot of things. Um you
know, like like post scarcity, do we all
get front row at Taylor Swift? Well, no.
You can't. You literally can't. That you
can't do that. You can't replicate an
experience that's designed to be one on.
But anyhow, that being said, I I I get
into this where like ah what are we to
do in science? What's left for humans?
I'm like, where's my hoverboard?
You know, have we I'm you know, talking
to one of the uh one of my former
colleagues from OpenAI and we're like
should we think about funding stuff like
you know like there there are a couple
questions that could be answered that
might tell you if fast and light travel
is possible? you know, um, you know, you
need to establish that there's some sort
of cosmic reference frame, otherwise you
have casualty evaluations and stuff, but
you know, like
>> Well, and and if if I'm putting on my
futurist hat, knowing that where we're
headed to,
>> what is Wait, describe your futurist hat
to us for
>> Oh my god.
>> Is it Wi-Fi enabled?
>> It's it's it's actually a Robin Hood
cap, but it's made of diamonds. Literal
print on demand diamonds.
>> Diamond age.
>> Yeah, exactly. But but I think what we
do is we craft many realities. We're
already doing that virtually in the form
of, you know, you could feel like the
second lieutenant of your favorite
subcultures discord group or, you know,
just the fidelity of all that is going
to get bigger and bigger. If you want to
live in the Federation and and wake up
on the USS Enterprise, you hear it.
>> I hear you. A lot of us aren't gamers
and we don't want that. We want reality.
>> Yeah. Well, that's good for you. There's
another reality for you. I'm saying that
that that there is as many different
postmodernist skins that that are going
to be fleshed out.
>> Well, I'm talking about like the real I
hear I believe. Yes, I think there's
going to be the escapist version that
people are going to want or whatever.
And there might be we might build some
version reality better than this
reality. All for that. But I'm also like
no like like legit, let's let's solve
warp drive. Let's let's see if that's
solvable. Let's like re for real do
that. Not, you know, put on Meta 5000s
and pretend we did, but let's re because
that's exciting to me is like, can we
really do it?
>> I also wonder whether or not
we are at an age where, you know, every
generation rejects the lessons of the
last generation to a certain extent. And
in the same way that my generation in
many ways now that I look back was
defined by the idea of rejecting
physical barriers and embracing the
internet so you can connect and grow and
enrich yourself in ways that was denied
you or was more difficult or had
gatekeepers physically.
Uh and then you have a generation after
that that really takes that to the next
level. Like I kind of wonder whether or
not Bella's generation is going to be
more about physical embracing physical
community.
>> Yes.
>> Because it's because it's lame and
boring and what the old kids do who are
complaining about how their life sucks.
>> Uh historyed physical property and made
by authentic humans are two things that
have not been affected at all by the
recent changes. Not at all. If a
300-year-old colonial chair was 300-y
old colonial chair made by an excellent
craftsman, it still is. And guess what?
It's only more valuable for all of its
rarity. So, uh, but now now you know
that's all fine and good for the for the
goober on the internet to say where, you
know, how do I get paid for it? Uh,
>> welcome to our podcast, Goobers on the
Internet.
>> Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's that's
what we're all figuring out. And yeah,
it's extremely chaotic during this time.
And yeah, it sucks, but it's awesome.
>> I loved I mentioned like last week Star
Trek: The Undiscovered Country. One of
the things I loved was like when they
talked to like the the space president
uh you know, who I think was the dad
from uh that 70s show, but with like you
know, red cling on face tan, whatever.
>> Oh my god. Really? Red Foreman
>> I think. So, and he's in this
>> his office is this like Elizabethan or
whatever style, you know, 18th century
furniture.
>> And I'm like, that was the most
realistic thing I think I've seen in a
lot of science fiction movies was Yeah.
No, they're going to want that. They're
going to he's probably going to want to
be original furniture because that's
what makes it special. And I think that
we we you're to your point like yeah,
both you're right like record stores
like we talked about this album sales
are up. Um, I'm tempted to put together
a Blu-ray wall of just a bunch of
Blu-ray videos because one, it'd be kind
of cool and now it's now it's kind of
retro and not like, oh my god, you still
have those. Two, because sometimes media
disappears. And I think that, you know,
we you see how Yeah. like a very popular
thing with younger kids is using like
there's a my wife bought this camera,
this like Fuji camera that takes photos
that look like they're 1990s flash
photography photos. I like like they
look like crappy photos to me, but all
the kids like this. And I realize, oh,
our generation was one of the last ones
to have physical lasting media.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, and and these kids don't. They
have CDs. Everything they have is
freaking a download or a game expansion
package or something like this. And
you're like, why are people excited
about effing popcorn buckets?
>> Because we killed the toy industry. I'm
very excited about the Guile Street
Fighter popcorn bucket
>> and that's that's become this insane
multi 100 billion like a 100 million
something like billion dollar industry
for popcorn buckets because yeah people
people want physical things. Yeah. They
want collectibles. They want to be able
to to have a a lasting trigger in their
brain whenever they look at it or they
hold it that brings them back to that
moment. I would even I would even
venture not not forcefully but
suggestively, provocatively, seductively
if you want.
>> Wow.
>> Hold on. Roll for charisma. Go ahead.
>> I was going to say I think I I I think I
read these text messages on TNC last
night.
>> He was ready.
>> I'm ready to roll. Um
I think that part of it is the idea that
maybe maybe it is the the fetish is the
idea that I'm going to have this forever
and go revisit it. I think there is
something to the idea too of
at least I want to have this experience
for a moment. I won't care about it in a
while, but it will be fun. Like I don't
know where my action figures are. I
don't cry for Han Solo. I don't I don't
decide don't feel like I need to play my
Han Solo figure anymore. But man, when I
had it was really cool and it gave me
this experience, this sort of thing to
do that. And I think that some things
even physical things can be ephemeral
and that's fine. You know, we we we we
dealt with this ball, but was deal this
with magic where when you create a magic
trick, you're trying to think, is this
for the professional, but the people
that really cracked it, it's like, no,
this is for the amateur. And the
experience of playing with the props and
learning it is actually more important
to them than actually performing it for
other people.
>> Right. Well, and and that's one of the
things about magic in general is that it
exists as so many experiences at once.
It exists as a a realitybreaking
surprise performance for people in the
wild or a theatrical experience, but it
also exists as the training montage to
go from not being able to do a wizard
thing to doing a wizard thing. And it
also exists as now now everybody's got
their own levels of skill, how much they
want to invest in terms of knuckle
busting whatever or memorized whatevers.
And then other people are like, "Well, I
just want the the thrill of of, you
know, paying my 50 bucks." And then look
at that. I I know that I'm awesome. And
not for nothing, that matters. One of
the things I'm most pleased with on the
Rogu's ring is that is not that it has
an escape shim in it because truthfully,
you're never going to be put in C cuffs
and need to use it to escape. It's the
fact that that we put hieroglyphs all
around the outside that are crib notes
to remind you so that when you go into a
party, you're like, "Oh, do I know any
tricks?" Yes, there are 23 of them on
your finger right now and and your crib
notes are there for you. So, I think
that uh uh magic experiences
buy stock in Magic, man, because the
ability to continue to surprise people
in an age of wonders is going to be
valuable. Oh, wait. Hold on.
So, you're telling me that magic growing
booming industry and we want physical
media again? Andrew, we're going back to
the warehouse. I'm packing up the
family. We're going back to Margate.
We're the the band's back together. I'll
call the DVD replicators and let's tune
this MF up.
Do they still exist?
>> I don't know. Probably. I don't I hope
so. Who knows?
>> I I had a We had the the guy that did
our stairs said, "Yeah, just give you a
check."
>> And I'm like,
"A check? Physical check." I know.
>> And I panicked. Finally found a
checkbook. But I'm like I'm like, "Bro,
like I had I had I had a form that
needed a wet signature." And they're
like, "Just print it out." I'm like,
>> that's funny.
>> I um
>> there's a
>> what is this? The 90s.
>> There's a restaurant around me without
doxing that but it's like walking
distance from our house and uh it's very
south Austin. Very old oldw world
Austin. Uh so much so that it still has
a faded sign in the front that says no
checks. Thank you. And it's like the
world answered, "You got it, boss. We'll
do the work from here. We'll eliminate
them from all daily society." So you,
this darling little restaurant in my
neighborhood, will never have to deal
with it again.
>> Uh Dar in the chat says that what we're
talking about might be the appeal of a
Cyber Deck. Have you guys seen all these
Cyber Deck builds where it's like, look,
we could buy very nice laptops, but we
all love building these rugged, you
know, ready to move desktop PC proxies.
>> Yeah, I I mean, I have a lot of builder
stuff on YouTube and I see a lot of that
stuff. I don't see any, but they look
like they're more fun to build than to
use.
>> Oh, yeah. I think that's the real secret
is Yeah.
>> Yeah. I got, you know, that at Dev Day,
which is the Mod Retro, which has Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth built in. So, in theory, I
could, you know, it's a game. I'm
holding the the Mod Retro Game Boy
thing.
>> Uh, which I in theory could like, you
know,
connect to the internet and read my RSS
feeds on this thing. But,
>> well, and it's it's so interesting
because
>> Wait, could you control your codeex from
your Game Boy?
>> You could. You could do that.
>> That's awesome.
>> Yeah, there's a a group of game that
just says yes yes yes yes
go yes that's fine
>> do that authorized
>> authorized
>> bro no for real just do it I believe in
you make no mistakes
>> meanwhile uh I the very beginning you
know they added this new UI capability
to uh chat GPT where it can create like
inline UIs and stuff and also like I
just had it made me flappy bird
>> amazing Amazing.
All right, we got any pics?
Uh, yeah. I started a a show that I
ain't never seen a single episode of,
but I'm told it gets pretty good. So,
I'm starting at the beginning. I sort of
sat on the the sidelines because I heard
mid things at first, but I heard it in
so good that I started Ronald D. Moore's
for All Mankind. Watched the first
episode of that uh just two nights ago.
Yeah, I I I think Ronald Demor is great.
He's a He worked on Star Trek, was one
of the better writers there. He did the
Battlestar Galactica revival. He's a guy
that get called into everything. He's
really well known. When Lucas was trying
to do a Star Wars TV show, he brought
him in. Um I
I enjoyed it.
There is one story line that comes up in
like season 3 or it's just this stupid
soap opera storyline that I literally
haven't gone back to watch it because
I'm like I don't need this is a dumb
thing that's not dealing with the space
thing whatever kind of stuff and so it's
like when you get there we'll talk about
I'm like like I don't want to have to
watch scenes with this but
>> you know that is that is something where
our modern world of television is like
things either start really dumb and then
end. But like there there was this thing
even with like prestige television shows
that we really really really liked where
there were just plot lines in a seven
season arc that everybody including the
creators were just like, "Yep, bad.
Sorry. Let's retcon it immediately out
of the story and let's just pretend that
this never happened." and like almost
all the greats kind of have it, but now
it feels like either the cake is sort of
fully baked with these shows like like
they're they're flawed and then they
start at whatever height they're going
to get and then they just sort of taper
off. There's there's not really like no
there's like a really kind of a great
rise and then somewhere in season 3 they
accidentally have one of the most
beloved characters kill somebody on
purpose and then they're just like nope
bad. We should never do that. Let's
never have Jesse Plemen's character
reference the fact that he killed a man.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Uh Moore was great though because
when he worked on Battlestar Galactica,
uh he brought in his thinking because
like the thing that frustrated him about
like like Voyager or whatever was how
many shuttlecraft do we have? You know,
they're like, "Shut up, Ron." He's like,
well, I mean, you know,
>> he liked the idea of the
>> he liked the idea of the finite
resources being a thing that you had to
play with from episode to episode, but
Star Trek writing as it got
progressively weirder uh in soap operic
kind of didn't care and that became, you
know, thing he says, "No, what if we
what if what if the things that we avoid
as a writer become the things that we
have to deal with?"
>> Yeah. It made Battle Star great.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. What about you guys?
You go ahead, Andrew. I gota I don't
know what mine is, so you go.
>> I I uh It's two movies. It's a part one
and part two. And if you haven't seen
it, I highly recommend it. Um I'm going
to ask you this question first. Do you
guys like Rambo?
>> Sure.
>> Yes.
>> Do you guys like Sakario?
>> I haven't seen it, but I bet it's great.
>> You would love it. Do you like
Godfather?
>> Next question.
>> You like Godfather?
>> Uh yeah. You know what? I saw it too
late. I s saw it having been raised on
all the parodies of it and as a result
it by the time I saw it, it just played
as every cliche and I'm like I am
certain this was revolutionary.
>> You deserve you you you you deserve
another spin on it. And with Godfather
2, you should you should watch that
Godfather one and two if not back toback
then like in the same headsp space. Uh,
>> use whatever part of your brain you use
not to be a magician when you have to
watch a trick.
>> Okay.
>> Same thing.
>> All right. You know, yeah. Well, it's
just like like what now that you
understand it's like, oh, all of that,
even things that you didn't know were
from the Godfather that people were
doing or referencing and then you're
like you're just kind of catching all
these things. You're not really focusing
on the plot of the performances. Uh,
Godfather 2
is amazing and there's a lot of that
that
you know like people make references to
like some of the lines but they're not
like it's not nearly as you know
saturated in in all of pop culture and
and once you get into it and it's like
oh okay this is why this plus Good
Fellas is the Sopranos and it's just
it's iconic. It's awesome.
>> Yeah. So if you like uh a little bit of
the departed, do you like all these
things, right? We like all maybe the
wire. We like all these things.
>> Yeah.
>> What if we set it in Indian Pakistan and
we call it Durandar?
>> What is this?
>> Sure.
>> Durandar is the highest grossing like
Hindi language action movie of all time
or movie in in India. Uh it is two like
almost three-hour epour films. It is the
plot line is in retaliation against all
of the state sponsored terrorism acts
from Pakistan into India. India sends in
a guy, a death row inmate to there to
take over the criminal underworld of
Pakistan and provide because there's a
connection between the criminal
underworld there counterfeiting weapons
and all that to terrorism to basically
dismantle the Pakistani terrorism
at
>> Brex.
That sounds
>> it's over the top. It is it is a blast.
It's crazy. It's really really over the
top. Um that guy there is the head of
Pakistani in intelligence services. He's
he's kind of the main baddy. Uh when you
see what's on the end of the wires,
there you go.
>> Jesus.
>> Yeah.
Pull that away for terms of service.
>> Yeah. Durandar. Uh they have one and
two. They were shot two up two back
toback. They're long films. They're on
Netflix. Uh highly recommend it. Um
>> yeah.
>> Uh well, I'll tell you just because I
heard them. This is a physical pick. We
um you know, my wife and I raising our
daughter both work and uh you know,
sometimes things get a little messy.
Consider if you are in our situation and
you have little extra scratch,
hiring professional organizers. We have
now done this not once, not twice, but
three times. Once for our closets and
storage areas, once for our pantry, and
it's happening right now for our um for
our garage,
but it's not as much as you would think.
And it it's like, "Oh, well, I could do
that by myself." You're not doing it
now. You're probably not going to do it
later. And uh uh what if you could knock
it out? And if you have the money, think
about it. I'll tell you what, it it has
been kind of a game changer. And I would
dare suspect as we move into more of a
world where the human touch kind of
matters that you wouldn't see more of
stuff like this. Uh kind of atomized
elements of what used to be
very luxurious kind of services. um
professional
chef like a a butler or logistics
manager or something like that that
would normally do a lot of this stuff as
a full-time job. If this isn't kind of
just made more into something that that
becomes more of a middle class um
indulgence every once in a while. Uh but
yeah, we've we've had a really good time
and it's I don't know. I'm excited to go
downstairs and see what happened in my
garage. Awesome,
>> gentlemen. It's been weird.
>> Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man. I'll be real
curious to see how this episode shakes
out because I ran out of disc space
halfway through and I was but I was able
to
>> start moving stuff around. the stream
never dropped and then I resumed on the
back end and uh that'll be a good stress
test of my producer to see how my
producer will repair all of that.
Uh oh man, we got to we Okay, so G.
James B, I think earned the uh the the
challenge coin. Well done, G. James B.
If anybody has a counter claim, you
could go back and prove it on the
record, but I'm pretty sure I saw G.
James B is the most participating person
in the chat. So, that is challenge coin
number 363
to G. James B. Well done.
And shouts out to Goals Camp who
appreciates that we are alive.
Heck yeah.
So,
you probably need to shut everything
down, right?
>> Uh, I mean, uh, we could we could barrel
straight through. It's It's going again.
I'm I'm going to have to solve
everything, but we could do a short uh
20 minute after things.
>> Sure.
>> Okay. Well, cool. You want to take us
in?
>> Yes.
>> In three, two.
Hello and welcome to After Things. I'm
Adrier Main joined by Justin Robert
Young.
>> Hello Mr. Brian Brushwood.
>> Hello. Hello.
>> Uh they just dropped a new codeex
feature while we were talking and doing
weird things.
>> What's going on?
>> Uh autocomplete. It looks at what you've
been saying, what you're doing, and the
state of the project, and it suggests
your next prompt to you.
>> Oh,
yes. Good. This is amazing for projects
where I have gotten myself in way over
my head. That's that is that is what I
want. I want like there I'm at a point
with my fitness app now
where I can keep refining my user
experience
but I'm at the end of what I would even
have ever touched when it comes to
finishing an app code reviewing an app
and deploying an app at scale right so
it's like I need that we're in a place
now where I need to know what I don't
know. And that is an amazing an amazing
feature. I'm I'm thrilled to get uh to
to get it in my hands.
>> I saw a tweet that shook me.
>> Uh
>> oh. All night long.
>> No, I I I think you're not being koi. I
I think you're we're about to hear
something real.
Uh, I shared with Justin before and it
now it was the only moat is staying
interested in your vibe project longer
than two days.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's uh the the initial
thrill of going from zero to one and
then the realizing that from here on out
it's just work.
A lot of things get abandoned.
>> Yeah. I I now have
forced myself
to limit the number of things that I do
now. I I I give myself like,
>> you know, two projects that I work on,
like maybe one software project and one
something else.
>> The problem is is you're waiting for
stuff to render or do
>> and then you get bored and like, well,
I'll go do this other thread. sort of
trying to do is to figure out how to
multitask within the same project and
not go do some new project.
>> Um, do either of you know who Jada Kiss
is, the rapper?
>> I know the name. Yeah.
>> Do you are you do you know his
distinctive laugh
>> that he has peppered into his songs and
became his his trademark?
>> No, I don't.
>> Do me a favor. just go on YouTube and
just just look for Jedakus laugh because
this is a lot different when you know
what Jedakus's laugh sounds like. Uh
because I I'm I I've not told either of
you guys this because I work with both
of you in a professional capacity and
it's shameful for me to tell you what
time I spend on these flights of fancy,
but I got obsessed.
There we go. Fancy. But I got OBSESSED
THAT LAUGH. OKAY.
RIGHT.
I got obsessed with what would happen?
Would it change the trajectory of the
midterms if all of a sudden Trump just
started doing his own version of the
Jedakus laugh like just in the middle of
stuff? And so then I got into thinking,
okay, well now what would the Trump
Jedakus laugh sound like? So, I
generated 50 different Trump Jedakus
laughs. Then I'm like, well, I need to
test this with the public. Let's create
a site where people can play all of the
Jedakus laughs and then vote which one
is their favorite. What if we actually
put it in different speeches in
different parts of Donald Trump's career
to see how it would sound if he added
the Jedicus laugh? And so, I did this
for like five or six different speeches.
And then I'm like, and I thought it was
so funny. It was like the funniest thing
I had ever thought of. And then, you
know, in in
po uh postvibe code clarity, I came back
to the project and I was like,
>> what am I doing?
>> And I was like, what is going on with my
life? What is this? Is this AI psychosis
is dropping this many tokens into what
would happen if Donald Trump started
doing the Jedicus lab?
Uh, I
I saw a funny thing, hilarious thing,
and I think I think it's true. Some guy
took Claude code and started looking
through space telescope data and and is
like, "Hey, I think I may have found a
candidate planet that got lost in the
data." Somebody else is like, "Oh my
god, this dude's AIOS is so bad. He
think he found a planet." Yeah.
>> Turns out he may have actually found a
planet.
>> Uh I want to look this up because like
uh that's like uh well there you go.
That's the kind of uh let's see planet
discard.
>> Well and so we were talking about like
pocket you know postabundance realities
like much like the gentry elites in the
19th century. uh they could be wealthy
in money and in servants and in heritage
or whatever, but they would could be
poor in scientific status. And so as a
result, it became desperate that they
had to go out and find the thing to make
their mark. And you know, I I'm sure
that uh you know, you go on expeditions
hoping to find not just scientific
progress, but glory to go with it. And
if we have more people motivated to, you
know, contribute to the grand expansion
of scientific understanding, even if it
is for status and internet points
part-time, good, good. Give us all the
insights.
Uh, I'll give you the summary. This was
from the Reddit Claude AI thread. Uh,
they had the Claude AI modbot do a
summary of this. TLDDR of the discussion
generated automatically after 400
comments. The consensus the consensus is
clear. This is effing, but it actually
says the word incredible. This is the
the the bot. After a flood of useless AI
generated blah blah blah OP, a tech P
not a pro astronomer dropped a bombshell
by using cloud code to find a legitimate
exoplanet candidate and even got NASA to
point a telescope ad for confirmation.
The community is hailing this is one of
the best most tangible uses of AI seen
on the sub. Even the pros are impressed.
Several exoplanet researchers, including
a professor jumped into the thread to
confirm the signal is real and totally
reasonable candidate.
>> That's amazing. That's amazing.
>> Now astronomers are upset.
>> Yeah.
>> Mind getting more upset.
>> But that's just that's that's everybody
has it's about everybody has access to
these tools. And I was thinking like
there is so much
>> astronomical data out there. There's so
much biological data. There's so much
stuff out there that I think we're going
to see a lot like now that this guy's
doing it, guess what? A lot of other
people are going to be pointing their
tools at that data looking for other
stuff.
You know, there's a
uh planet 9, which would have been
planet 10 if we didn't give Pluto the
weird demotion, which is still
debatable. It's not I met the guy that
did it and it's still not as clear-cut,
but anyhow, neither here or there. Um
there's a rumored in theory if you look
at some of the the the the objects
outside of our solar system, the outer
edge of our solar system, how they be
some of them feel like they look like
they're being strangely attracted to
something way outside,
you know, the the orbit of of Neptune
and Pluto. Um and it might be somewhere
in the data, but it's just finding in
the data and finding the candidate.
There's could be another massive planet
out there could be like a Neptune sized
object out there in our solar system
that's just so far out it's hard to
detect and it's you know you'd have to
wait for it to go in front of a star.
But now we have the technology to kind
of go through there and say, "Okay, can
I get all this data and go look for some
of the candidate stuff and try to find
it?" Like I think we're going to see a
lot of astronomical stuff happen next
because it's very related to math and
imaging. And guess what? AI is really
good at math and imaging.
>> Yeah. And I guess the data sets are out
there. As a matter of fact, the first
distributed networking super campaign
was the SETI at home, which is just
churning through all of that raw
telescope data and uh finding signal in
the noise. Turns out that LLMs are
pretty good at that.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, I I think that's kind of
super cool that, you know, we're in that
space.
>> Let your memes be dreams. Go out and put
some tokens on it, friends.
>> Yeah.
Um, I would say my advice right now is,
um, well, I'm trying to take my advice
is pick a thing,
>> put all your effort into that thing.
>> Yeah. Don't don't start nine other
things.
>> Yep. Uh, hey, I got a question.
>> You You know what had barely started one
week ago when we did our last program,
but now it's been a lifetime later is
our life with dots. How's how has your
productivity changed since Dots came to
town?
>> Game changer for me. Game changer for
me. It's been great. The idea of one
persistent consistent
thread that I go to to get stuff done.
Uh I would say my biggest weaknesses
isn't using it enough, but I love it. My
wife, my God, Rush is like always always
using her dot and it's just been huge
for her.
Uh
yeah, I think it's a remarkable product.
Um
the biggest thing that I would want from
it
is to just be even more persistent
beyond what what it can do kind of as an
app. like I I want it to really tap me
on the shoulder and tell me, hey, these
things need to happen or are you aware
of this or um you know uh uh but in
general the the biggest thing that I I
don't know if it was really even sold at
Devday
is that it's a onepoint control source
for everywhere that you have codecs
installed and uh a cloud computer where
you can delegate it uh responsibilities
that don't have to exist on
uh on your physical machine al along
with you know just regular chat GPT
stuff. So it's the closest thing that
I've seen
to kind of a perfect personal assistant
and work buddy for me. I was gonna like
when it started popping up with alerts
and stuff, I I had the thought, "Oh my
god, what was a beautiful dream to
Justin one year ago is now science
fact." Is is is this the thing you'd
been hoping for? We're on the way. I
mean, I think it's
I would love it to live in a different
place. I think that I'm glad I have it
in the chat. GPT
uh app. I think the Chad GPT app is
overcrowded. I would like for it to just
be a headless thing. I would love to
just have it live in my text messages
and then kick out to another visualizer
when I need to have visualizing or I
need to go to a browser or something
like that. I would I would almost rather
it just be a cloud browser that can talk
to me that mostly just interacts with me
in a place where I'm normally
interacting with things than to have it
be its own app. But I I'm afraid that we
are not going to see that world until
OpenAI creates their own hardware for me
to interact with it. That being said,
this is the first time where I've been
able to see a very clear path to that
from OpenAI software and cloud to OpenAI
hardware. If like now you can just say
dot on a thing rad cool. Does it have a
screen? Does it not have a screen? How
long is the battery? What can I do? What
can I not do? Like that's those would be
my questions. Not like, well, OpenAI is
going to come out with hardware. Oh,
well, I hope they build a thing that's
really cool. It's like, no, no, no. This
plus+. Awesome. Let's roll.
Yeah, it uh it's
uh it's a great bridge to a lot of
things. I I kind of wish So, we were
talking Andrew earlier about uh getting
distracted while one thing's rendering,
you find yourself doing another. You
know, I have many different ongoing
types of tasks that are on different
systems. And very quickly, I was the one
the one thing I was annoyed with is that
it only had one physical computer to
boss around instead of all three that I
use for arranging projects and so on.
>> Sorry, I got distracted rendering
something. What was that?
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh, I can't wait for the
DOT to be able to manage multiple
computers that that have codecs on them.
>> Yeah, I want Well, have you have you
connected your codec sessions to your
other computers?
>> Uh, yes, but but they require like let's
say one of them is done and waiting on
the thing. It has no ability to
I would love it if a dot could listen to
where projects are at and then interrupt
me when one is ready to do which I'm
certain like I can set each one up as a
with its own automations but then
oftentimes will agree upon a plan but
then you know it'll fall on its face and
never tell me whereas a dot as a
persistent hey looks like you fell on
your face you want me to ask the user
something would be nice.
>> I'm asking my dot if you can see all the
sodc sessions.
>> Uh it it well uh I don't know about
seeing it, but I know that it can only
control right now. You can only it's got
its own computer and then you could
select one of the computers with codeex
chat GPT on it for it to control as
well. But but for me, I've got three
persistently doing stuff and so I had to
pick just one. Yeah, it it might be.
Yeah. I mean, again, the thing might be
like have a thing running on the cloud
they all check into because they can all
access the same cloud computer.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, so what I've been
doing for now is I just remote desktop
in to each one and deal with it. But
>> yeah.
Yeah. I I I'm excited by where this is
headed. I I'm trying to I I think that
for those of us that are going through
AI psychosis and buy building, like
that's the future. The future's just
making stuff, you know? The future's
making stuff happen. It's like what it's
like what it's like to be a rich person
who gets to tell somebody else to do
something for you.
>> I'll tell you what, I made Oh, yeah. Uh
I did a bold
>> thing on the talk that I gave in Omaha
this week is I showed up and I did not
start assembling the program that I was
going to run until I physically saw the
venue and I understood what combination
of things it would want. And it turns
out that the event, the perfect version
of this hour and 15 minute talk I was
going to do would rely on about 25
minutes material that I knew existed in
this particular PowerPoint. And then I'd
need to transition over to these this
element that was from the wolf masking
talk that I gave at whatever and that I
would need the overlay teleustrator. And
really to do this, right, I would need
to do a magic trick, but it would be a
magic trick that nobody would be able to
see. uh from the audience. So, what I
really needed was to be able to turn on
my webcam and do a just long enough to
do a trick and then switch back to the
program. And once I understood all of
that, uh it was like a two-hour
conversation with a robot and there was
a flawless set of programs and I was
even able to say, "Hey, right now you
have it set up on these buttons. Can you
add these buttons as well?" And then I I
gave one of the best technical talks of
my entire career. Uh that was crazy.
That's great. I think there's it's
finding that line between having
everything ready to tell you what you
need to say. I did a talk I did in
Ecuador a couple weeks ago. A lot of
everybody's asking about the AI doom
stuff and I just took the first 10
minutes to talk about that. Didn't even
go to my slides and I just talked like
just about that. Then I went to my
presentation. People loved it and I was
like, "Oh, this is this is interesting."
You know, this is telling me that I need
to one like I for every talk like I go
through all my slides. I pull out stuff.
I pull out all the old stuff like by old
like stuff that's three months old. You
know, I see people do talks on AI and
they haven't changed
>> in a year. And
>> that's insane. That's criminal that you
should you should also do balloon
animals if you have not updated. about
to say this is a familiar sentiment for
those of us who came up in Magic.
>> Yeah. Uh I I I just had a talk with um
couple people that came through
Interdimensional
that run a news outlet in the East Bay
and they were all worried because you
know they're not really up on AI and and
they know about it but also they have
people that they're connected to that
are doing crazy things. And I was like,
look, I think if you were really dialed
into AI, you could do some really
amazing things a year ago. You could do
really impressive things two years ago,
three years ago. But if you have no
connection to it, the tech is now at a
point really only over the last six
months in my opinion where you can very
reliably
uh fold it into and augment your
business with it. if you have no
technical understanding of coding or
systems or web hooks or infrastructure
or anything like that, like now it is
user friendly enough and it is reliable
enough that you can actually just let it
run. Uh and they were like, "Oh, wow.
That's crazy." But if somebody hasn't
updated their their thing in a year,
you've missed all that. Like you're not
even talking about what's happened over
the last year.
>> Yeah.
any picks?
>> Uh, try play with the dot. If you ain't
played with your dot yet, play with the
dot
>> and specifically do things in the cloud
computer. Just tell it to do things in
the cloud computer. Tell it to render
random I one of the first things I did
was like, hey, find my schedule and
render a 3D image in Blender of what my
schedule is today. Love it.
>> Like,
>> and then Oh, because it has that
software and you can watch it on its
computer do that thing. Yeah. Well, I
mean, just because like that's the
dumbest thing I could think of of like
frivolous like what would what would I
do if if nothing mattered? If the
computer didn't matter.
>> Yeah. I was like just Yeah. I'll never
look at it again. It was just like oh
cool. It did it. It made a 3D image of
my schedule for the day.
That's amazing.
>> Crazy.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Double down on the dots.
>> Dot it up. Dot the eye.
It's been after
>> got it. Uh G James B send me a email and
I will see all you beautiful live stream
people later. Hidual funded.