1 00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:08,160 Welcome back everyone. I am Cass PNC. 2 00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:10,640 I'm joined as usual by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennett 3 00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:11,720 Tomlin. How are you today? 4 00:00:11,720 --> 00:00:13,080 I'm doing well. How are you, Cass? 5 00:00:13,080 --> 00:00:14,560 I'm doing great. We're joined by one of our 6 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:18,840 favorite guests, Ed Zittron, who hosts the Better Offline Podcast 7 00:00:19,080 --> 00:00:24,040 and writes Where's Your Ed AT and runs Easy PR Ed, How are you 8 00:00:24,040 --> 00:00:25,240 today? I'm doing great. 9 00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:26,640 I'm fantastic. Cool. 10 00:00:26,640 --> 00:00:31,560 Well, we, we wanted to have you on again because as 2024 came to 11 00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:36,080 an end, you put out an article and did a podcast about and you 12 00:00:36,080 --> 00:00:40,520 made sure to separate the rot economy versus the 13 00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:44,760 inshitification of everything. But this, this concept that 14 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:49,320 we're all being monetized and everything is getting worse at 15 00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:53,200 the same time. And I think it's a really good 16 00:00:53,200 --> 00:00:56,960 topic for us to have because you're in a sense, I don't think 17 00:00:56,960 --> 00:00:59,120 you're necessarily more hopeful than Bennett and I. 18 00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:02,440 And we've had a lot of guests on recently who are also quite 19 00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:08,080 pessimistic about the possible future of not just like the US 20 00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:10,600 and the Internet, but like, I guess the world. 21 00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:15,320 But I think an important point you're making in your blog and 22 00:01:15,480 --> 00:01:18,600 on your podcast is that we need to fight back, right? 23 00:01:18,600 --> 00:01:21,560 I feel like that's a a point that has been missed in our most 24 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:25,640 recent recordings, which haven't been released as of us just 25 00:01:26,120 --> 00:01:28,640 talking right now. But yeah, let's let's start 26 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:31,040 with. Are you like for for? 27 00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:34,160 Me and for the people we've talked to recently, I'm quite 28 00:01:34,160 --> 00:01:38,800 concerned that some of the people who you you don't mention 29 00:01:38,800 --> 00:01:40,920 these people in your most recent stuff, but I know that you feel 30 00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:44,560 the same way I do about them. But like Elon Musk, Marc 31 00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:47,920 Andreessen, David Sachs, all of these people have the ear of 32 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:49,880 Donald Trump. They are going to be in control 33 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:52,960 of the FTC. You had Lena Khan on to talk 34 00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:55,120 about how she's been actually going after some of these 35 00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:56,440 companies and trying to make a difference. 36 00:01:56,440 --> 00:01:59,160 But like, are you, what are you concerned? 37 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:02,040 Are you more concerned than like what? 38 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:03,920 What happens next? Ed, what do you think? 39 00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:06,680 I am concerned and I think it would be foolish not to be. 40 00:02:06,720 --> 00:02:08,960 It's not great having these people in power, but also these 41 00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:13,240 people are extremely, extremely. They have very low, low self 42 00:02:13,240 --> 00:02:15,080 esteem and very low attention spans. 43 00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:18,560 And what they're going, the most likely thing is they're going to 44 00:02:18,560 --> 00:02:21,320 start pulling back consumer protections and financial 45 00:02:21,320 --> 00:02:23,600 protections. They want the FDIC gone. 46 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:26,920 Why? I actually don't know, but also 47 00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:31,600 doing these things is like it's going to take some work and also 48 00:02:31,880 --> 00:02:33,480 to what end? For more money? 49 00:02:33,560 --> 00:02:36,320 They're going to get bored. Government is slow and boring. 50 00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:39,800 There's so much stuff you have to do, and I'll move fast and 51 00:02:39,800 --> 00:02:41,680 break things you can try in government. 52 00:02:41,680 --> 00:02:44,440 It does not work very well. It takes forever. 53 00:02:44,440 --> 00:02:46,480 Everything takes forever. No one really likes it. 54 00:02:47,240 --> 00:02:50,600 I think it's going to be a lot like the problem with the first 55 00:02:50,600 --> 00:02:53,720 Trump administration, which is what him putting a bunch of 56 00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:58,040 judges in the things regulation, the way things will be changed, 57 00:02:58,040 --> 00:02:59,960 are going to be bad. The fact that net neutrality is 58 00:02:59,960 --> 00:03:01,840 out is bad. That's going to hurt people. 59 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:06,880 I think the fact the Chevron was repealed is really bad. 60 00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:10,000 I think the fact that judges can now make the call over whether 61 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:12,640 an agency was right is kind of bad as well. 62 00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:15,320 I think we're going to see a lot of things rolled back like that. 63 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:18,240 However, the first Trump administration really proved 64 00:03:18,240 --> 00:03:20,680 that these people are very poor at governing and they're going 65 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:22,840 to have trouble doing all of the wackadoo things. 66 00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:25,400 There's going to be the deputation is going to happen, 67 00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:28,560 but it's going to be very focused in states where it's 68 00:03:28,560 --> 00:03:31,000 going to be easy to do that for television. 69 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:32,440 It's going to fuck. It's going to be fucking 70 00:03:32,440 --> 00:03:34,120 horrible. I feel for those people. 71 00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:37,760 It's fucking disgusting. But back to the tech stuff. 72 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:41,840 I mean, these people don't even have goals, OK? 73 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:44,760 We're going to like make it easier for us to make money. 74 00:03:44,760 --> 00:03:47,560 I think we already do. It's no, Yeah. 75 00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:50,960 It's, I just want to push back on that 'cause I think the, the 76 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:54,160 suggestion that they don't have goals, you're not, you're not 77 00:03:54,160 --> 00:03:57,080 wrong in some sense, but I think the, the goal ultimately 78 00:03:57,640 --> 00:03:59,600 oftentimes enough. And I've noticed this with like 79 00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:02,360 media, for instance, when they when these billionaires buy 80 00:04:02,360 --> 00:04:06,560 media companies or Twitter, the goal isn't that they wanted to 81 00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:11,320 operate better, it's to break it down and make it dysfunctional 82 00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:13,520 on purpose. I actually don't think that's 83 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:15,120 what happened with Bezos, by the way. 84 00:04:16,079 --> 00:04:17,440 I'm not sure. I think it took. 85 00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:20,959 I think he bought it. Like, I think it, he bought it 86 00:04:21,279 --> 00:04:25,120 like anyone, anyone would buy like, I don't know, like a 87 00:04:25,120 --> 00:04:26,960 watch. He bought it like a watch, 88 00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:28,520 maybe. And then it didn't. 89 00:04:28,520 --> 00:04:29,960 It fell out of style. So he can't. 90 00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:32,000 He's like, oh, I don't want to piss off Donald Trump. 91 00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:37,640 Yeah, LA Times is an example of someone not doing this as well. 92 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:40,760 He's just a fucking idiot. He's just a rich fucking idiot, 93 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:44,520 a capricious moron who wants to kiss up two fellow capricious 94 00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:46,440 morons. And that's the thing. 95 00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:51,320 It's much easier to look at the world and say this is the plan. 96 00:04:51,400 --> 00:04:54,120 The powerful are doing the plan now the plan is happening. 97 00:04:54,280 --> 00:04:57,680 Ah, Bezos is finally doing the plan soon, is doing the plan 98 00:04:57,680 --> 00:04:59,200 now. Look at the plan instead of 99 00:04:59,200 --> 00:05:01,520 looking at it in the far more obvious way, which is these 100 00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:07,680 people are just as emotional, capricious, and fucking thinly 101 00:05:07,680 --> 00:05:10,720 veiled in the things they care about as anyone else. 102 00:05:10,920 --> 00:05:12,280 I'm not saying it's less damaging. 103 00:05:12,280 --> 00:05:14,320 I'm not trying to disagree with you that like I don't think 104 00:05:14,320 --> 00:05:17,120 there's some broad conspiracy. That's not my suggestion. 105 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:21,440 My suggestion actually is that what happens is my, my 106 00:05:21,760 --> 00:05:26,520 suggestion on Blue Sky was that basically what happens is 107 00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:30,480 there's these high quality newsrooms that are doing really 108 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:34,000 good work and, and investigative journalism that costs a bunch of 109 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:37,280 money, right? And then when they do that work, 110 00:05:37,640 --> 00:05:41,000 they just get disparaged and called liars by a bunch of 111 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:43,840 billionaires. And unfortunately, because those 112 00:05:43,840 --> 00:05:48,000 billionaires have such increasing reach to the public 113 00:05:48,280 --> 00:05:52,400 and lawyers that they can hire to just clog up the legal 114 00:05:52,400 --> 00:05:57,840 system, they destroyed the reputations of this whatever 115 00:05:57,840 --> 00:06:00,960 high quality newsroom until the point where it's like a 116 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:03,600 billionaire buys this high quality newsroom and then 117 00:06:03,600 --> 00:06:07,120 ultimately stops funding the the high quality journalism and just 118 00:06:07,120 --> 00:06:08,760 does whatever the fuck they want with it. 119 00:06:09,040 --> 00:06:11,920 And that helps all of them. Right. 120 00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:15,960 When did that happen though? I If you look at the Washington 121 00:06:15,960 --> 00:06:18,360 Post, if you look at the Los Angeles Times, like I. 122 00:06:18,360 --> 00:06:21,280 With the LA Times, the LA Times has been going through it for 123 00:06:21,280 --> 00:06:23,440 years. I'm not saying the the new 124 00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:24,760 owner, I forget his name, pardon me. 125 00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:28,160 I'm not saying he's been a great owner and he is absolutely doing 126 00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:32,080 things to make Trump happy and make his other rich friends 127 00:06:32,080 --> 00:06:34,680 happy and killing stories. But look at the Washington Post. 128 00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:37,520 The Washington Post in the last year, though they've been fucked 129 00:06:37,520 --> 00:06:39,960 up on the endorsement, has done incredible work in tech. 130 00:06:39,960 --> 00:06:42,960 Helpdesk is great, their tech journalism is great and Tashtiq 131 00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:45,760 there are great journalists there and still great journalism 132 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:47,160 happening Washington. Most are some of the best 133 00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:50,480 political journalism, just not sure what it is you said that 134 00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:52,000 happened there. Well, they're not. 135 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:54,760 Allowed to do op-ed pieces any any longer, I mean. 136 00:06:54,760 --> 00:06:56,240 And that, and that's fucking terrible. 137 00:06:56,240 --> 00:06:58,440 I'm not saying that there's been no effect. 138 00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:01,520 I'm saying that you were saying that great journalism was being 139 00:07:01,560 --> 00:07:03,960 defunded. So a great, another great 140 00:07:03,960 --> 00:07:06,800 example, and we're we're talking about large scale defunding when 141 00:07:06,800 --> 00:07:10,720 it comes to like, like when it comes to a part of journalism is 142 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:13,080 op eds. So the idea that Bezos is now 143 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:16,240 telling The Newsroom how they can operate and what they're 144 00:07:16,240 --> 00:07:19,280 allowed to report on. I mean, that is a defunding of 145 00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:21,680 journalism. I also think a point I made 146 00:07:21,680 --> 00:07:25,560 recently is that, for instance, my small town that I live in has 147 00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:27,600 a local newspaper that I was like, oh, that's interesting. 148 00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:30,560 Maybe I should make it get a subscription to this this small 149 00:07:30,560 --> 00:07:33,160 town newspaper because I want to support local journalism. 150 00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:35,880 Well, as soon as I looked into this small town newspaper, who 151 00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:39,360 are they owned by? Chatham Management, like some 152 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:43,840 nasty large private equity firm that goes across the country 153 00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:48,440 buying newspapers and making them Republican news outlets. 154 00:07:48,440 --> 00:07:52,400 So the like the concept that it's not being defunded and 155 00:07:52,400 --> 00:07:56,720 completely altered into large scale propaganda. 156 00:07:56,960 --> 00:07:59,720 I think we're talking about the LA Times and Washington Post 157 00:07:59,720 --> 00:08:02,720 directly. I agree with you on that 90%. 158 00:08:03,520 --> 00:08:07,840 I think again, you are seeing you're seeing a grand plan where 159 00:08:07,840 --> 00:08:11,360 the actual answer is when you buy a bunch of newspapers and 160 00:08:11,360 --> 00:08:14,120 you run them as cheap as possible, what sells? 161 00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:20,040 Slop engagement bait Shit that gets people riled up people buy 162 00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:23,040 shit and share shit because it pisses them off, but also a lot 163 00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:26,120 of these local outlets and it's in the TV stations as well. 164 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:30,000 They're just making the same fucking thing they're just doing 165 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:31,720 the same thing. I'm not actually saying you're 166 00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:34,280 wrong yes, that is a direct example of what happens. 167 00:08:34,559 --> 00:08:36,720 I just don't think that anyone was like and now the 168 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:40,120 conservatism ISM begins. Perhaps they once they own it, 169 00:08:40,120 --> 00:08:43,559 they go I'm I'm racist. Why don't I add a little bit of 170 00:08:43,559 --> 00:08:47,520 that mustard to the to the pie Dunaway put mustard in a pie. 171 00:08:47,520 --> 00:08:50,960 Moving on. But it's nevertheless, it's what 172 00:08:50,960 --> 00:08:54,400 I'm trying to get is we're kind of agreeing, but I just want to 173 00:08:54,400 --> 00:08:58,440 push you to say I don't think these motherfuckers have a plan. 174 00:08:58,680 --> 00:09:00,400 I don't think they're really sitting there. 175 00:09:00,480 --> 00:09:03,360 I think on the whims that they have, they are choosing the 176 00:09:03,360 --> 00:09:04,880 conservative things they always believed in. 177 00:09:04,960 --> 00:09:07,200 Well, and I think just to interject, I think this could 178 00:09:07,200 --> 00:09:11,720 even be kind of an example of the rod economy where rot begets 179 00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:15,000 rot, right? Local papers were struggling and 180 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:18,520 dying long before private equity and a few conglomerates got 181 00:09:18,520 --> 00:09:21,040 involved. Most of them had like their ad 182 00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:23,840 space was becoming less and less valuable, and that was the 183 00:09:23,840 --> 00:09:26,920 principal driver of their revenue, even for ones that had 184 00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:28,640 somewhat stable subscriber bases. 185 00:09:28,640 --> 00:09:31,320 Right, A lot of these. Little answers, Craigslist and 186 00:09:31,320 --> 00:09:32,440 Facebook. Exactly. 187 00:09:32,560 --> 00:09:35,600 Yeah, they lost Declassified and they lost the local advertising. 188 00:09:35,840 --> 00:09:38,160 And as soon as they did that, they didn't have the subscriber 189 00:09:38,160 --> 00:09:40,600 base to stay them on. And so then, yeah, a bunch of 190 00:09:40,600 --> 00:09:43,840 extractive people who mostly are conservative because they're 191 00:09:43,840 --> 00:09:46,840 assholes at the top of the capital pile, come in and start 192 00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:49,920 doing the things they're going to do, which is got and let the 193 00:09:49,920 --> 00:09:52,960 rot be, get the rot. I think kind of getting back and 194 00:09:52,960 --> 00:09:58,000 zooming back in, like what are the levers you see that exist as 195 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:03,360 a way to resist or challenge the rot economy, the kind of 196 00:10:03,840 --> 00:10:07,000 worsening of all these platforms and products and things like 197 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:09,040 that? So I think a big thing to start 198 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:12,000 with is that if you look at the media, as you 2 have very 199 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:14,720 intelligently said many times, they're not very good at saying 200 00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:17,240 the names of the fucking people responsible and pointing at them 201 00:10:17,240 --> 00:10:19,120 and saying these people are fucking responsible. 202 00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:23,040 And I think that when they do so, and this is not a criticism, 203 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:25,600 this is just where it's done, The only way it seems to be done 204 00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:28,440 is going, hey, these people are right wing psychos. 205 00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:32,320 As a result, a lot of criticism of tech inherently starts 206 00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:34,560 politicized and it starts being about right and left. 207 00:10:34,560 --> 00:10:35,960 I'm not saying it's wrong to do so. 208 00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:39,200 Ian Higgins has a great book that just came out specifically 209 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:41,960 about this incredibly important stuff about how these 210 00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:44,120 billionaires are right wing and how they're doing these things 211 00:10:44,120 --> 00:10:46,920 in the right wing. The problem is it's a little bit 212 00:10:46,920 --> 00:10:49,960 more subtle than that. The people causing the problems, 213 00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:54,640 the Andrew Bosworth, CTO of matter, Sundar Pashay, Sam 214 00:10:54,640 --> 00:10:58,200 Ortman, Mark Zuckerberg, these people are in apolitical and I 215 00:10:58,200 --> 00:11:01,240 know Zuckerberg's gave money over whatever he's he believes 216 00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:03,720 in nothing. He really believes in nothing. 217 00:11:03,880 --> 00:11:06,440 And thus you don't really get the criticisms of them and you 218 00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:08,320 don't just get them saying their fucking names. 219 00:11:08,480 --> 00:11:10,000 That's what really pisses me off. 220 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:14,160 Andrew Bosworth 2017 the ugly There was the the internal 221 00:11:14,160 --> 00:11:16,240 letter he set out saying all things are justified in growth, 222 00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:17,960 including bullying and terror attacks. 223 00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:21,800 This should be in every single article ever written about 224 00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:23,960 Andrew Bosworth until the day he dies. 225 00:11:24,440 --> 00:11:27,320 The same thing with Mark Zuckerberg and the fact that he 226 00:11:27,320 --> 00:11:30,040 is the reason Facebook is how Facebook is. 227 00:11:30,320 --> 00:11:34,000 The fact in 2008 that his growth team was buying ads to con 228 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:36,600 people into joining Facebook, scaring them into believing that 229 00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:38,160 someone was stealing their identity. 230 00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:41,240 These are the things that these people have done and the reason 231 00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:44,640 they've got powerful is that for the most part, this stuff was 232 00:11:44,640 --> 00:11:49,320 not, it was documented, but it wasn't screened everywhere when 233 00:11:49,640 --> 00:11:53,520 we can't cover open AI and Facebook and all of these things 234 00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:57,800 without adding their names. And I actually, I know that this 235 00:11:57,800 --> 00:12:02,160 is kind of wanky, sadly, but the, the, the hundreds of emails 236 00:12:02,160 --> 00:12:04,720 I get where it's just like I fucking tell my friends, I tell 237 00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:06,680 my friends who's responsible and so pissed off. 238 00:12:06,680 --> 00:12:09,200 Now I understand why Google's broken because at ease, mother 239 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:12,600 fuckers. This is what changes things. 240 00:12:12,680 --> 00:12:15,320 This is what makes people walk away from products. 241 00:12:15,520 --> 00:12:19,120 This is what makes people talk about how bad the products are. 242 00:12:19,160 --> 00:12:21,400 And guess what? Not the reason they buy these 243 00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:24,480 newspapers. These men are desperate for 244 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:26,880 attention. They're desperate for history to 245 00:12:26,880 --> 00:12:28,880 reflect well on them because they got so much money. 246 00:12:29,440 --> 00:12:32,680 So covering them in this way that's very much like these are 247 00:12:32,680 --> 00:12:34,360 the people. This is exactly what they've 248 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:37,880 done and every act they do since is a reflection of their past. 249 00:12:38,560 --> 00:12:42,200 I think it's necessary and it's something where the tech media 250 00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:45,600 needs to change because I don't know, or maybe they won't and I 251 00:12:45,600 --> 00:12:49,080 will continue to grow a great audience on this because it 252 00:12:49,080 --> 00:12:52,800 seems extremely bloody obvious. So you think the the main way 253 00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:55,800 you're suggesting the main way for people like us? 254 00:12:55,800 --> 00:12:57,960 Or other journalists to fight back. 255 00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:00,840 Is to name names. I also think it's regular 256 00:13:00,840 --> 00:13:02,000 people. I see. 257 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:05,040 I also think the regular people discussing these things is the 258 00:13:05,040 --> 00:13:07,640 Jon Stewart effect, the reason there was such a political 259 00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:10,280 awakening years ago. The problem is the conservatives 260 00:13:10,280 --> 00:13:13,040 got way better at it than the Democrats ever got. 261 00:13:13,120 --> 00:13:15,560 Jon Stewart did well at 1st. And it's like, hey, what if we 262 00:13:15,560 --> 00:13:18,840 just make all the shit up? We just make it up. 263 00:13:18,840 --> 00:13:21,080 We just fucking say what we want whenever we want without any 264 00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:22,960 fear of anything. And that, by the way, is 265 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:24,920 extremely effective. And it's exactly what we can do 266 00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:26,360 to tech. Just say it. 267 00:13:26,400 --> 00:13:27,600 What are they gonna do? So. 268 00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:29,480 Actually, this is something I wanted to like. 269 00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:32,440 I had a note about this and I and I maybe you'll think this is 270 00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:34,600 a silly note, and if so, we can just move right on past it. 271 00:13:34,600 --> 00:13:38,160 But, but for me, you quickly brought up, and I think this is 272 00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:41,600 crazy because you're so right. But you, you quickly brought up 273 00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:46,200 in, in one of your recent podcast episodes that, you know, 274 00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:48,720 when you were using the new computer that you bought, you 275 00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:53,440 had to sign this TNC, sorry, terms and conditions that 276 00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:56,960 basically said, OK, if anything bad happens that really harms 277 00:13:56,960 --> 00:13:58,320 you, we're going to go to arbitration. 278 00:13:58,320 --> 00:13:59,840 We're not going to go to Criminal Court. 279 00:13:59,840 --> 00:14:01,200 We're not going to go to civil court. 280 00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:02,160 We're going to go to arbitration. 281 00:14:02,160 --> 00:14:04,880 And I thought about that and I was just like, damn, he's right. 282 00:14:04,880 --> 00:14:08,040 That's crazy that we all just sign that stuff and just move 283 00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:10,400 past it. But then I, I remembered like, 284 00:14:10,520 --> 00:14:12,760 oh, no, no, no, wait. Like this is a part of the 285 00:14:12,760 --> 00:14:17,600 zeitgeist already. Like South Park in 2011 did a 286 00:14:18,280 --> 00:14:22,800 now quite infamous famous episode called Human Scent iPad 287 00:14:22,800 --> 00:14:27,240 where the boys sign up for the Apple terms of service and 288 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:31,480 basically they end up being part of an experiment to, you know, 289 00:14:31,600 --> 00:14:33,680 do the human centipede. And that was this moment. 290 00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:36,120 I think there was like an actual cultural awakening of like, oh, 291 00:14:36,120 --> 00:14:39,400 we have no fucking idea what we're signing when we do these 292 00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:41,040 TNCS. But then we all just laughed 293 00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:43,440 about it and moved on. And I'm, and I'm curious, like, 294 00:14:43,840 --> 00:14:47,760 what do you think actually causes outside of like just 295 00:14:47,760 --> 00:14:52,320 naming names, how do we get businesses and companies and 296 00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:57,000 billionaires to change the way they, they operate, you know? 297 00:14:57,000 --> 00:14:58,720 So I think it starts with just walk out. 298 00:14:58,720 --> 00:15:00,560 If you don't like something, delete your fucking account. 299 00:15:00,760 --> 00:15:02,800 You can be deeply unhelpful to these companies. 300 00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:05,720 You can go in and check all the boxes to remove all all your 301 00:15:05,720 --> 00:15:06,960 sheet. You can delete as much as you 302 00:15:06,960 --> 00:15:08,520 can. You can turn, unclick those 303 00:15:08,520 --> 00:15:10,160 things. Those things actually do matter. 304 00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:12,800 And I, I realize it sounds small, but seriously, you can do 305 00:15:12,800 --> 00:15:14,400 that. Services like delete me to 306 00:15:14,400 --> 00:15:15,760 remove yourself from data brokers. 307 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:19,240 You can make yourself a little ungovernable, but also and 308 00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:22,760 getting back to journalism. A really basic thing is we, as 309 00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:28,600 anyone covering anything need to totally read rebuild how it is. 310 00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:32,240 The job is done because I choose open AIA lot because open AI is 311 00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:34,800 probably the worst covered company out there. 312 00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:39,600 Open AI, ChatGPT, everything that's written about them should 313 00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:42,480 have something about how the company is burning $5 billion 314 00:15:42,640 --> 00:15:44,000 every single time. Why? 315 00:15:44,240 --> 00:15:48,480 Because this company has no, they have no Moat, they have no 316 00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:50,880 real sticky product. They have all these things. 317 00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:53,240 But guess what? In the last year of Better 318 00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:56,200 Offline, I had this worry that like, oh, regular people are 319 00:15:56,200 --> 00:15:58,640 going to think this is too much. So I really broke down the 320 00:15:58,640 --> 00:16:00,120 language. I'm just like, this company 321 00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:02,240 burns $5 billion. It isn't obvious what it is 322 00:16:02,240 --> 00:16:04,400 they'll do. And they have no real path to 323 00:16:04,440 --> 00:16:07,360 anything approaching AI. Most people can understand that. 324 00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:11,040 So if media stops talking to their readers like they're 325 00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:14,160 fucking morons, but on top of that talks to them in a 326 00:16:14,160 --> 00:16:17,600 straightforward, non condescending way, that has a 327 00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:20,080 real measurable effect. But on top of that actually 328 00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:22,880 explain what's happening. What's been crazy is the amount 329 00:16:22,880 --> 00:16:24,840 of times I've cited my Facebook piece. 330 00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:26,720 For example, I wrote middle May last year. 331 00:16:26,720 --> 00:16:29,160 There's no other anthology piece like that. 332 00:16:29,160 --> 00:16:33,480 I looked just a piece that says why is Facebook shit, what 333 00:16:33,480 --> 00:16:35,480 happened and this I cite it all the time. 334 00:16:35,480 --> 00:16:37,080 I get emails about it every week. 335 00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:39,520 People be like shit I had no idea the man who killed Google 336 00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:42,320 search same deal. Give people a clean explanation 337 00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:44,280 for why the conditions of the world are like they are. 338 00:16:45,400 --> 00:16:47,520 I don't have the perfect answer here. 339 00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:50,800 I have to quote Ned Beatty, like from Network. 340 00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:53,640 I think it is here. I don't tell you to write your 341 00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:54,960 congressman. I don't know what to tell him. 342 00:16:54,960 --> 00:16:56,680 But at the same time, I can't say who. 343 00:16:56,680 --> 00:16:58,200 But there are people with governor who's read my work. 344 00:16:58,200 --> 00:16:59,920 There's Pete, there's hedge funds that actually discuss it. 345 00:16:59,920 --> 00:17:01,960 There's people who are listening and think. 346 00:17:02,280 --> 00:17:04,400 And The thing is, you don't have to wait long. 347 00:17:04,400 --> 00:17:06,440 Give it a year or two. They're all going to have to 348 00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:08,880 fucking face this either way because once generative AI 349 00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:10,160 collapses they don't have a growth. 350 00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:12,839 Market anymore and just to push back on this because I'm going 351 00:17:12,839 --> 00:17:14,599 to play devil's advocate here a little. 352 00:17:14,720 --> 00:17:18,760 I think it's fine to suggest people mention the expenditures 353 00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:23,040 of ChatGPT and open AII. Don't necessarily disagree that 354 00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:27,800 that should be worth discussing. But I will say that a lot of 355 00:17:27,800 --> 00:17:31,160 people would probably push back and say a lot of now profitable 356 00:17:31,160 --> 00:17:35,480 companies or some of the largest companies in the the world for a 357 00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:39,160 decade plus weren't profitable. And like, how do you push back 358 00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:41,680 against that argument? Very easily. 359 00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:45,200 OK, so Uber is the classic example that people give. 360 00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:48,960 Uber, of course, the classic drops that people off or stuff 361 00:17:48,960 --> 00:17:53,520 off company right now, when I wrote How does Open AI survive? 362 00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:56,640 Last year, one of the things I got from actually one of the 363 00:17:56,640 --> 00:17:59,920 reporters who wrote the Open AI story, though losing $5 billion 364 00:17:59,920 --> 00:18:02,920 was well, Uber worked it out. Uber worked it out, didn't they? 365 00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:07,200 Wrong O Uber's worst loss in the year I believe was $6.2 billion 366 00:18:07,200 --> 00:18:09,560 that year, 2020, The year they could not function as a 367 00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:11,520 business. The year when nothing was 368 00:18:11,520 --> 00:18:15,880 running because COVID. Crazy that Otherwise Uber has 369 00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:18,680 burned a shit ton of money, but they've burned it entirely on a 370 00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:21,480 directional path. Horrible labour practices as 371 00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:23,960 well toward expansion into everywhere. 372 00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:27,520 There was always a thing that Uber did that resulted in a 373 00:18:27,600 --> 00:18:30,400 profit. It involved labour abuses, which 374 00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:34,120 the media also laundered. But putting that aside, Open AI 375 00:18:34,120 --> 00:18:36,960 has nothing like that. They do not have a similar 376 00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:39,120 business model. Open A is model is the 377 00:18:39,120 --> 00:18:42,280 antithesis of good software business models. 378 00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:45,440 It gets more expensive as it scales. 379 00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:48,920 Their argument as well as well. The hardware will come back Ed, 380 00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:51,400 you fucking idiot. The hardware will fix this. 381 00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:53,840 They'll just make more chips. Bloody hell, do you know how 382 00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:57,040 chips are made? How hard they are to make? 383 00:18:57,200 --> 00:19:00,080 They're talking about ASICS, so specialized chips just for 384 00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:02,400 generative AI, right? How the fuck do you scale one of 385 00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:04,120 those? How's it like when you're going 386 00:19:04,120 --> 00:19:08,240 to take that bad boy out? The thing is, there are very 387 00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:10,880 clear reasons this isn't all of these companies. 388 00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:13,000 What are the the other companies that burned lots of money? 389 00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:15,640 Did they burn as much money? How did much did they burn? 390 00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:17,680 When did they start being profitable and how did they 391 00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:19,800 start being profitable? Because the answer in all of 392 00:19:19,800 --> 00:19:23,040 these cases is very simple in ways that are completely 393 00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:25,680 different to open AI. Because open AI at their core 394 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:30,120 has no MO, but also is based on unprofitable software that is 395 00:19:30,120 --> 00:19:33,560 only made profitable through chips that don't exist yet and 396 00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:34,840 may never exist at all. I. 397 00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:37,400 Don't think Uber is a good example because for me the one 398 00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:41,720 that immediately comes to mind is something like Amazon where 399 00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:45,560 they obviously they do disgusting labor practices I 400 00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:49,520 granted, but really their cash cow has nothing to do with that. 401 00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:54,160 Their cash cow is AWS as far as if I remember correctly. 402 00:19:54,160 --> 00:19:58,280 So their cash cow is far different from what they started 403 00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:01,000 even as. And again, this could be an 404 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:02,720 argument that someone could make where it's like, yeah, you're 405 00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:06,560 flushing them with cash early with, you know, private equity 406 00:20:06,560 --> 00:20:08,600 money or whatever, but. The most profitable part of 407 00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:13,240 Amazon is their marketplace. It's FBA fulfilled by Amazon. 408 00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:14,680 Like, that's the thing. Like, is it? 409 00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:18,560 Yeah, Oh. I thought AI thought AW. 410 00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:21,800 AWS prints money. Yeah, I thought AWS was their 411 00:20:21,800 --> 00:20:22,920 big. Oh, they print. 412 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:25,920 Oh, you're not wrong. AWS just fucking prints money. 413 00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:28,400 The argument is always US wasn't profitable at first. 414 00:20:28,560 --> 00:20:29,680 Yeah, they were still building up. 415 00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:32,000 Because The thing is, with a cloud compute infrastructure, 416 00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:34,440 for example, it is an efficiency play. 417 00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:37,200 You actually do have to build out a bunch, spend a bunch of 418 00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:39,880 money and then costs come down because you work out 419 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,440 efficiencies. That's not how it works with 420 00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:44,480 generative AI. You can build out the data 421 00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:47,400 centres, but these things are power hungry and they have a 422 00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:50,600 terrifying fail rate. I read in the journal it's like 423 00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:55,400 I may have even be as high as 40% failure rate on these parts. 424 00:20:55,720 --> 00:20:58,920 Like this is in everything is insane. 425 00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:02,520 It's insane out there just enough to drive me crazy and I'm 426 00:21:02,520 --> 00:21:04,800 already pretty wacky. There's so many, there's so many 427 00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:07,640 parts of this that just drive me completely bonkers because it's 428 00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:12,680 like, why am I the guy? I run a PR film like I I'm the 429 00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:16,320 fucking why am I the guy being like, hey, yeah, fellas. 430 00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:19,920 Like I have more age. The lever you pointed to, to 431 00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:23,960 like try to give some kind of power back against like this rat 432 00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:28,600 was being more direct in our collective coverage of these 433 00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:32,960 issues. But like, how do you do that in 434 00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:36,040 a sustainable way likely to meet people? 435 00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:40,320 Like doesn't that then ram against like the exact problem 436 00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:42,400 you're describing? That these platforms are 437 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,320 hollowed out and rooted out? That the place to reach most of 438 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:48,480 the people has been has made it hard to reach them? 439 00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:52,520 That, like meaningful discourse beyond like a small set of 440 00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:55,360 people, is hard to achieve and maintain. 441 00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:58,320 Is it? I mean, it's like, The thing is, 442 00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:01,080 the fact that Blue Sky has grown has given me a lot of hope 443 00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:03,920 because if Blue Sky can do this, someone else could do it to 444 00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:05,720 Instagram, someone else could do it to Facebook. 445 00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:08,800 And yes, it is that simple. They just have to get enough 446 00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:11,440 users. It's easier to prove with the 447 00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:14,960 the model there. But also say that's true, say 448 00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,080 you have a smaller audience. Does that mean we don't try? 449 00:22:17,720 --> 00:22:22,920 Because my general thought is, is that the tech media still has 450 00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:24,480 power. This tech media still has 451 00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:27,640 audiences. The right and right wing VCs 452 00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:30,920 have been desperate for over a decade to create their own 453 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:33,480 outlets. Pirate wires, future. 454 00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,240 Every fucking few years they got we're going to make our own 455 00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:37,960 thing. And it sucks because nobody 456 00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:39,880 likes it. Nobody cares. 457 00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:43,960 At the same time, the tech media has been spinning its wheels and 458 00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:46,360 has been doing kind of the same thing for years. 459 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,240 And they're afraid in the same way most of the media is afraid 460 00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:51,560 of breaking objectivity, which does not exist. 461 00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:53,960 To your point earlier cast people yell at you that you're 462 00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:55,960 lying no matter what you do, right? 463 00:22:56,040 --> 00:23:00,400 So in what the tech, media and many parts of the media can do 464 00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:05,320 is, I don't know, speak bluntly, Open AI is doing this. 465 00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:07,800 This is what it means. It's also important to know that 466 00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:11,360 Open AI burns about $5 billion a year, and Open AI does not have 467 00:23:11,360 --> 00:23:14,280 a path to profitability. Though O1 may allow you to do 468 00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:17,200 some things theoretically, it is yet to prove itself as a 469 00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:19,960 consumer product or really any kind of enterprise product. 470 00:23:20,120 --> 00:23:24,480 The use cases are not there. I know this works because I have 471 00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:27,320 people e-mail me going shit, I didn't understand that before. 472 00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:29,960 That's really infuriating. I just told some friend of mine 473 00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:32,360 that you ChatGPT and they're like, wait, this loses the money 474 00:23:32,360 --> 00:23:33,560 every time. That's really funny. 475 00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:37,760 Some of them use it more. I don't think that it has to be 476 00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:40,640 that complex. I don't think it even has to be 477 00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:42,520 that scary. It just has to be. 478 00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:44,400 We need to start speaking more plainly. 479 00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:48,120 The reason the right wing media is so successful, they're lying 480 00:23:48,120 --> 00:23:51,440 also, is that and not particularly condescending, Joe 481 00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:54,840 Rogan's successful because he's kind of sounds like a dunce and 482 00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:56,800 he asks questions that people like. 483 00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:58,800 What's that mean? I'm like a little fraught right 484 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,800 now because I on one hand, I, I agree with you, but on the other 485 00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,960 hand, like one of the things that Bennett and I have 486 00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:07,560 struggled with for years now because we cover cryptocurrency 487 00:24:08,120 --> 00:24:12,120 is how convoluted, complicated and silly even being able to 488 00:24:12,120 --> 00:24:16,200 report on financial shit is. Like, OK, so we want to report 489 00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:19,520 on this guy, but this guy has registered an offshore bank 490 00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:21,440 account under an registrant's name. 491 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,200 It's not under their name. So the way that we're going to, 492 00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:26,160 we have to report it legally so that we don't get sued is we 493 00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:28,000 have to say it's, you know, like, like there's all these 494 00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:32,240 ridiculous, like it, it inherently becomes complex, 495 00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:35,400 complicated and difficult to understand and hard to report 496 00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,080 on. And I think it like, suggesting 497 00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:40,160 like, oh, yeah, well, media needs to do a better job of just 498 00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:43,960 saying it bluntly isn't necessarily fair enough to being 499 00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:45,880 like, yeah. But the problem is when you're 500 00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:50,120 trying to report it bluntly, if you say something even slightly 501 00:24:50,120 --> 00:24:53,200 incorrectly, you're getting sued and you might lose. 502 00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,800 Now, like, considering who is gonna be in charge of all this 503 00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:59,400 shit and the Supreme Court and stuff, you know? 504 00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:04,800 That is on some level kind of giving up in advance like I, but 505 00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,680 also on top of that, crypto is its own special freak. 506 00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:10,960 I don't write about crypto anymore because I don't think 507 00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:14,400 people care, but also it is difficult to pull apart. 508 00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,800 But also I don't know how to cover crypto anymore. 509 00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:21,120 I don't know what actually matters about it, because it 510 00:25:21,120 --> 00:25:26,680 seems to exist in this kind of echoing NTH dimension situation 511 00:25:27,120 --> 00:25:30,280 where rules and laws and logic don't seem to apply. 512 00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:32,120 Isn't that what's happening with AI as well? 513 00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,640 No, no AIAI. The thing is with crypto is it 514 00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:37,600 does not follow any of the other rock economy shit. 515 00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:40,720 It is not obvious how this grows forever. 516 00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:44,040 It benefits people just through fraud, it seems, just as a way 517 00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:45,880 of dispensing capital to other people. 518 00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:49,400 I mean, it's AI steals content from creators and then that's. 519 00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:51,000 Completely different. Just totally different. 520 00:25:51,360 --> 00:25:53,920 The kind of fraud that crypto does is they basically make up 521 00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,440 money and then somehow liquidate it, which is insane. 522 00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:58,800 It's insane. I actually think the crypto may 523 00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,560 be one of the things that does fall out of my thesis because I 524 00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,480 truly do not know how you do it every week because it is a 525 00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:07,600 frustration, frustrating and confusing industry. 526 00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:12,480 But also my experience with is the I don't know how big crypto 527 00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:14,400 is as well. I actually don't know the scale 528 00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:15,840 of crypto anymore. I mean, I think. 529 00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:17,920 I think it's pretty difficult to. 530 00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:20,680 Assign it no value in terms of like. 531 00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:22,960 Oh, I'm not saying no. Value but I just mean in terms 532 00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:27,920 of sorry in terms of like Donald Trump is you like Howard Lutnick 533 00:26:28,120 --> 00:26:30,040 who's going to be in the incoming administration. 534 00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:31,880 He's going to be the Department of Commerce dealing with 535 00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,760 tariffs. This guy is everything for 536 00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:38,760 Tether, like the biggest, this multi, nearly $200 billion 537 00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:41,640 stable coin. Like the idea that these guys 538 00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:44,440 aren't able to do whatever the fuck they want. 539 00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:50,200 Now I like, I feel like it, it's, it is just fact. 540 00:26:50,360 --> 00:26:53,240 Like it's, they will be able to do whatever they want, but like 541 00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:55,280 that is a part of the right economy, is it not? 542 00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:57,960 Like am I am I wrong? I think it's a part of it. 543 00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,760 I think the weird thing is, is that it's one where they kind of 544 00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,240 won for now. Yes, that's how I feel. 545 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,160 So now because. What do you what? 546 00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:07,880 Does that mean I live in Las Vegas? 547 00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,920 I know gamblers. There is going to be someone who 548 00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:13,160 tries to exit this market at scale and breaks it. 549 00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:15,200 There will just be a point when that happens. 550 00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,560 It will become unusable, I am confident in that. 551 00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:21,160 The problem is that the actual people who needed to cover 552 00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:24,480 crypto properly fucked up years ago and allowed these people to 553 00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:27,440 get entrenched. Crypto is a great example of 554 00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:31,160 where AI theoretically could be if people were not like we've 555 00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:34,040 got some critics like we. There was some good job done, 556 00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:38,120 crypto was just more. The financial hooks were far 557 00:27:38,120 --> 00:27:40,840 easier to get. In crypto however, it is 558 00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:43,760 impossible to tell how much real money exists in it. 559 00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:49,000 Not saying it's small, I'm just saying at scale if it's as big 560 00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:52,000 as AI and also no. Is this even a fucking tech 561 00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,560 industry thing anymore? It just feels like an open 562 00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:56,720 financial crime. It feels like something. 563 00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:00,320 We're enabled by technology. And they, oh, it's technology, 564 00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:04,800 but it's like big tech has not really wanted to touch it 565 00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,000 because of the financial crimes. And I think we're going to get 566 00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:09,320 four years of rubber capitalism. I think it's going to be 567 00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,920 disgusting, but at the same time, how much money can come 568 00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:15,400 out of it? 10 billions come out of it, and 569 00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,800 hundreds of million like it's an interesting thing. 570 00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:23,000 Tether, just one firm in crypto, was able to deploy multiple 571 00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:26,840 billions last year outside of crypto into other which is. 572 00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:29,040 Which is fascinating to purchase satellite. 573 00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,840 Companies to purchase Farming companies to purchase. 574 00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,120 Companies. AI company power generation 575 00:28:35,120 --> 00:28:38,160 companies invested in Anthropic. It's one of the reasons that FTX 576 00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:40,160 is able to make people whole. Yeah. 577 00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:42,960 So who's to say if it's bad? Getting back to the previous 578 00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:45,480 thing, like about how media coverage should include this 579 00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,800 context, include these things that to me still seems like it's 580 00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,560 running up against the problem of the entire media ecosystem is 581 00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:57,200 rotted out and there's no one to fund, like reporters having 582 00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,400 enough time to actually develop the context and the stories they 583 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,120 cover. Or maybe it's the editorial 584 00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:04,760 missions that just don't include this shit every time like they 585 00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:06,360 should. The tether thing should be 586 00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:08,880 included every time. But also it's hard to explain. 587 00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:11,800 It is a challenge and there are not enough people tasked with 588 00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:14,000 doing it. Most of the crypto reporters in 589 00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:19,120 the last few years, not all of them Ian Allison, Legend, but 590 00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:20,960 there were people at major publications who were pro 591 00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:23,280 crypto. Fucking insane. 592 00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:25,880 Fucking crazy. Sure, sure, sure failed on 593 00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:27,800 crypto. Just getting back to I'm still 594 00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:33,160 struggling with the jump to like how do you develop a sustainable 595 00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:37,680 cadro of journalist of media that's able to do in context in 596 00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,600 deep reporting across not just tech, but looking at it more 597 00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:43,320 broadly like across these different do we? 598 00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,240 We don't need to build a new thing, we just need everyone to 599 00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:48,360 take their heads out of their fucking assholes. 600 00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:50,040 That's the thing. They're what? 601 00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:53,040 About the last several millennia. 602 00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:55,520 The rot economy begets the rot economy, I think is. 603 00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,160 OK then part. Part of what what, what Bennett 604 00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,840 is kind of pointing out here and, and, and this idea that 605 00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:04,720 again the the media, unfortunately in America now 606 00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:08,120 with the rot economy is obligated to their shareholders 607 00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,120 more so than their audience. You are misunderstanding how any 608 00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:12,840 media outlet works. I've got a push back as hard. 609 00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,640 What is possible about that? That's not that's not what's 610 00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,400 happening. It's so much stupider, it's so 611 00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:21,280 much Dumber. The people at the top, they just 612 00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:23,800 want nothing to happen. They want their friends to feel 613 00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:25,760 important. But really the problem is you've 614 00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,960 got this upper editorial substrate of editors who do not 615 00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:31,720 know anything about technology, who go with the will of the 616 00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,000 markets and they follow the will of the markets. 617 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:38,560 It's not just cop down pressure from the rich, it's the fact 618 00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,240 that the editorial less the editors editing excellent 619 00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:44,400 writers don't know what they're fucking doing. 620 00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:46,360 They're they don't. They're all getting fired. 621 00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:48,440 At what are you talking about? Who I'm. 622 00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:50,600 Talking about places like Coindesk getting like all 623 00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,400 because they got they got purchased by hold on, like you 624 00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,880 just talked about Ian Ellison, like like I'm talking about 625 00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,640 places like coin Desk where you have super high quality, super 626 00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:02,600 high quality journalists like Nick D Ian Ellison. 627 00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:05,600 I could name, I could name a dozen more David Z Morris, who's 628 00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:06,520 come on the show. Danny. 629 00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:07,360 Danny. Nelson. 630 00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:11,120 A million, there's a million awesome journalists that came 631 00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:14,680 from came out of coin desk that reported honest, objective, fair 632 00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:18,400 truth and they actually destroyed their own business by 633 00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,320 doing so right. And so I like we have to Revere 634 00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,840 that and then you look at exactly what happened. 635 00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:25,160 Well, I'll tell you what happened. 636 00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:29,000 A Peter Thiel controlled a Peter Thiel controlled fucking 637 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,480 company. Bought Coindesk and ruined it. 638 00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:33,160 And it's, it's as simple as that. 639 00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:36,160 And and how did they ruin it? By putting pressure on a bunch 640 00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:38,880 of editors who then resigned because they're not going to 641 00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,640 stick around and, and be like, yeah, I guess I'm a part of this 642 00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:44,280 compromised editorial board. So they leave. 643 00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:46,880 And now you have you're like where you're suggesting it's 644 00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:48,640 like, well, they, it's all of these editors. 645 00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:50,240 It's like, well, no, the good editors leave. 646 00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:53,000 And now what are you stuck with? A bunch of them talking about 647 00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,280 different situations though Both can be true. 648 00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:57,080 There could be examples where it doesn't work. 649 00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,480 I'm not saying I have a complete cure, I'm just saying a place 650 00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,840 where things can change is this. Coindesk was a fucking disaster 651 00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:06,000 and everyone the second bullish touched it. 652 00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,160 And also people need to look around who else is friends with 653 00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:11,480 bullish because there's more people outside of crypto who are 654 00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:16,000 and the problem is also crypto. It really comes down to crypto 655 00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,880 is where my thesis is the most challenging because the money is 656 00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:23,280 more available and also it was really poorly understood when it 657 00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:25,920 grew to power and it's still poorly understood today. 658 00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:28,760 And the people explaining it today are doing so in this way 659 00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:30,640 where they're drawn between. Am I writing for the crypto 660 00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:32,680 industry? Am I writing for regular people? 661 00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:36,640 Because the regular, I don't know a single fucking person, a 662 00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,360 single person who has used anything with crypto. 663 00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:42,760 I truly don't. I have not in the last year in a 664 00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:45,680 conversation, even with reporters, I don't know who 665 00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,360 brought up crypto even once. This might be the first time 666 00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:50,880 I've talked about it in a year. I may have mentioned it in 667 00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,200 something. And that's the thing. 668 00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:54,880 I'm not saying you're actually wrong. 669 00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:57,320 I'm saying crypto is probably the most egregious example of 670 00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,160 where this is getting fucked up. What I am saying is you're 671 00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:02,320 asking for things that could change, things that could 672 00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:04,600 change. Now, the answer is, is that 673 00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:09,200 beyond the billionaires and the rich people, there are people in 674 00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:14,720 tech media and Business Media who are extremely poorly 675 00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:20,160 informed, feel that their job is to follow trends rather than do 676 00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:23,480 journalism, and they put pressure on writers to cover 677 00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:25,720 things in a way that makes them feel good. 678 00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,720 And this is in legacy media. This is in more new. 679 00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:33,080 Media you did a you did an important episode naming names 680 00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,520 and I think like right now we could name Kevin Roose and Casey 681 00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:39,120 Newton as like I'd like they. Kevin Roose, Yeah, like these 682 00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:41,080 guys have. I actually give Roose a little 683 00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:46,320 bit of credit in that he did put the boots to the Chris in a bit, 684 00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:50,400 But I will say Casey Newton, coward of the year, because 685 00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,200 Kevin was kind of cooking. Kevin was kind of like beating 686 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:56,240 his ass back. He's like, well, well, let's 687 00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,080 move on. As as Kevin was getting to the 688 00:33:58,080 --> 00:33:59,840 good shit. Kevin did fuck up. 689 00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:02,800 He thought I wrote about it in 2021, wrote about it in 2022. 690 00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:05,960 He fucked up. He he actually really messed up 691 00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:09,120 there and it's laughable that he kept his position. 692 00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:13,719 I think that he is a good guy who is easily won over, as 693 00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:15,719 proven by the fact that he was scared of being by. 694 00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:18,760 The way I think I I really hate that we always have to like if 695 00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:20,480 we. Oh, I'm not saying that. 696 00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:22,639 You'll notice that. I'm not saying that about Casey. 697 00:34:23,679 --> 00:34:25,679 You'll notice that I did. Those words did not leave my 698 00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:27,600 fucking mouth. It's just so funny to me that 699 00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:29,840 when we criticize people, we're like, well, on a personal level, 700 00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:31,320 I don't know them and they're probably great. 701 00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:34,800 I know, I know, Kevin like. You know, that's cool. 702 00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:36,639 I. Like, I think, I think, I think 703 00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,639 Kevin is credulous. It's, it's and it's. 704 00:34:40,639 --> 00:34:41,480 Perfectly. Acceptable. 705 00:34:41,639 --> 00:34:44,800 It's perfectly acceptable to still be like also this. 706 00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,679 It's fine if you like this person and they did a shitty job 707 00:34:47,679 --> 00:34:49,239 with this thing, like that's fine, you know? 708 00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:51,880 I mean, I was just saying it because it was how I felt. 709 00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:54,600 I don't think of many of the words before they leave my 710 00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:59,680 mouth, but I think the the big those two in particular. 711 00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:03,720 Yeah, with hard fork. Yeah, they did like an Amazon 712 00:35:03,720 --> 00:35:05,640 drone thing as well, which is fine. 713 00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:08,160 And I get what I did it. But it's also like, Oh my God, 714 00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:10,120 You want to do a little bit of history about how many fucking 715 00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:12,680 times companies have promised to deliver things with drones? 716 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,880 Do you want to talk about the fact that this is probably not a 717 00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:18,000 profitable or sustainable or possible thing? 718 00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,720 They're never scaling this shit. What the fuck are you talking 719 00:35:20,720 --> 00:35:22,520 about? But you've got to accept it. 720 00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:25,120 It's New York Times and they have this view of like the the 721 00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:27,440 Times is going to look at everything as a cautious 722 00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:29,600 optimist. Where's the caution anyway? 723 00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:33,400 I I quite lost on where I got to that point, but but there's 724 00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,000 actually, I will give you an example from within AI. 725 00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:38,880 So Wall Street Journal. I would argue that Wall Street 726 00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,000 Journal does probably the best investigative reporting in tech 727 00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:45,120 by far. I think the information isn't 728 00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:49,560 far behind yet the information also seems quite pro AI. 729 00:35:49,720 --> 00:35:51,920 It's very strange. But nevertheless, the Journal, 730 00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:54,280 their problem is is they bury stuff. 731 00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:56,800 They bury stuff deep within their stories because they lack 732 00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:59,400 the ability to have subjective thought. 733 00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:02,520 One of my favorite ones is I'm just going to quote something. 734 00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:04,520 This is from a piece about AI hardware. 735 00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:07,240 New engineering challenges also often arise with larger 736 00:36:07,240 --> 00:36:08,840 clusters. Meta researchers said in the 737 00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:12,440 July paper that a cluster of more than 16,000 of Nvidia's GPU 738 00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:14,480 suffered from unexpected failures of chips and other 739 00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:17,000 components routinely as the company trained an advanced 740 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,000 version of its LAMA model over 50 four days. 741 00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:21,600 What? They used to have ship breaking. 742 00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:23,560 We talk about NVIDIA all the time. 743 00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,720 A Jensen Wong is pissing gold and shitting golden geese that 744 00:36:27,720 --> 00:36:30,800 shit further golden eggs. But we don't talk about the fact 745 00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:33,200 that there's very clearly a failure rate problem because a 746 00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:35,400 lot of this coverage doesn't have any connection to the very 747 00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,840 good chips reporters. There is context needed here, an 748 00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,080 opinion needed here, an actual analysis. 749 00:36:41,240 --> 00:36:45,440 Readers, listeners, they want to be told not what to think, but 750 00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,920 given far more information about how to think about stuff. 751 00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:52,840 Yeah, though like the Wall Street Journal in specific has, 752 00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:56,520 has always been very cautious in the voice they strike in their 753 00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:57,840 news coverage. They are. 754 00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,360 I agree. They have a lot of lawyers and 755 00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:02,920 every single story they publish. I'm sure. 756 00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:06,480 And also you have to realize a lot of these lawsuit situations 757 00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:08,640 are happening in crypto because there's so much money involved 758 00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:11,000 with AI. They're not suing you because 759 00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:12,600 you say that this shit's going to burst. 760 00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:15,440 They're not Sam Altman's not going to Sam Altman. 761 00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:18,720 You have to know the ones like Sundar Pichai is not suing you. 762 00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:21,600 Google's not suing you. If they start doing that, we are 763 00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:23,800 in full authoritarianism and that's the time to be scared. 764 00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:25,240 But that ain't fucking happening. 765 00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:27,240 They want the world to be apolitical. 766 00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:31,040 They want to be left alone so that they can continue burning 767 00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:32,560 money and making themselves more money. 768 00:37:32,720 --> 00:37:35,680 That's why they're so horrifying. 769 00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:38,400 If Andreessen just want to be left alone. 770 00:37:38,720 --> 00:37:43,680 No, Andreessen wants to work out why the worm in his brain is is 771 00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,520 making him so angry. Marc Andreessen read 2 772 00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:49,080 comprehensive biographies of Hitler in 2022. 773 00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,040 I like mentioning that because it's one of the most insane 774 00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:55,040 fucking things I to. I'm kind of paraphrasing 775 00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:56,640 succession here. It's like, did you miss the 776 00:37:56,640 --> 00:38:00,480 Easter eggs? Like like I and it's. 777 00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:03,560 It's so weird. I like where you're where you're 778 00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:08,480 coming from a lot here. And I think as Bennett and I 779 00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:13,520 were two of the longest serving critics of Tether and Bit Fenix, 780 00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:17,400 which, yeah, like we won't get into all of it, but like we, we 781 00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:21,240 did it for a really long time. And I think a big part of our 782 00:38:21,240 --> 00:38:25,760 success is, is you're right that it was about sheer like 783 00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:30,240 mentioning number size, mentioning lawsuits, mentioning 784 00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,960 like re mentioning things over and over and over again, 785 00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:37,960 repeating them, making sure people understood like this is 786 00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:42,840 not some great startup, like this is a business fraught with 787 00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:46,560 problems. And I think you're right. 788 00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:51,160 I also think that part of our weakness if I'm, if I'm going to 789 00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:54,720 be honest about about this, is that ultimately you can only 790 00:38:54,720 --> 00:38:59,560 repeat something so many times before people go OK and moving 791 00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:00,720 on. You know what I mean? 792 00:39:00,720 --> 00:39:03,000 I. Want to say you're right and you 793 00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,080 are always thinking crypto because crypto. 794 00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:07,800 How do you explain what's wrong with it? 795 00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:11,080 Is fraudulent tethers bad but there's real money coming out of 796 00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:12,160 it? It's actually quite hard to 797 00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:14,480 explain what the real problem is with it. 798 00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:17,440 I'll give you an example. I wrote the Rot economy in 799 00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:22,800 February 2023. It took until last week for 800 00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,560 people to take it seriously last week. 801 00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:28,760 So I did repeat myself again and again. 802 00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:32,520 And The thing is, is that sometimes it's not just, and 803 00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,920 this, I'm paraphrasing Darreno Somoglu, he's from MITMIT 804 00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:40,400 Economist, he said that when it comes to ideas, it takes time. 805 00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:42,040 It's about putting them out there. 806 00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:44,520 Not necessarily they'll change everything the second you put 807 00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:46,800 them out there. It is about making sure that 808 00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:49,600 there is a record of these people because eventually the 809 00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:52,400 news, the things shift, things change. 810 00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:56,480 Sam Bangman freed, the whole collapse of Terra Luna, all of 811 00:39:56,480 --> 00:40:00,880 that was one of those moments. And I think that though crypto 812 00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:03,880 is higher now, I think that a lot of harm was avoided because 813 00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:06,520 a lot of people had written the promise of crypto. 814 00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:08,760 But also. Sam Bankman Freed really 815 00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:11,600 revealed how fucked up the coverage of crypto was. 816 00:40:11,720 --> 00:40:14,760 I think Sam Bankman Freed is an example of how the media failed 817 00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:17,360 the public probably more than they've ever failed them. 818 00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:21,600 And I'm not just talking about Ruse, I'm talking about CNBC. 819 00:40:22,240 --> 00:40:26,040 I'm talking about the story that went out couple weeks before 820 00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,280 everything collapsed, where they went to Sam Bankman Freed's 821 00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:30,840 house and saw his dog and his Camry and all that bullshit. 822 00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:31,440 I'm. Just. 823 00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:35,400 It's just crypto is it's so much more fucked than everything 824 00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:35,760 else. You. 825 00:40:36,240 --> 00:40:37,920 I'm not trying to. I'm not even trying to be 826 00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:39,800 argumentative with you today, Ed, because I agree. 827 00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:41,840 With you on I. Agree with you on most of this 828 00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:46,960 but I am saying like when I reflect on financial crime over 829 00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:51,520 the past 40 years or whatever, it's like how good was the 830 00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:54,680 financial reporting on Enron before that shit went terrible 831 00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:56,760 right? Yeah, with the exception of 832 00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:58,680 Bethany and. Exactly. 833 00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:01,360 There's always the exceptions. Not Bethany McLean. 834 00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:02,360 Great. Bethany McLean. 835 00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:04,360 Thank you. Holy shit, Bethany McLean. 836 00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:07,400 Yeah, she did great reporting. But like or or for that matter, 837 00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:11,720 Bernie Madoff is an A perfect. Example of like CNBC also made 838 00:41:11,720 --> 00:41:14,240 me think of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. 839 00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:17,760 Holmes was a great PR example of just how much people lie well. 840 00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:20,440 I think Holmes is a great example of actually media 841 00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:24,000 succeeding. That's like Wall Street Journal. 842 00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:28,800 Murdoch was a an investor in Theranos and they they were 843 00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:29,920 like, we're going to report on this. 844 00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:33,680 We want to find out the truth and Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch was 845 00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:35,920 like, do it. I want to know what the deal is. 846 00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:38,520 That is actually like a billionaire who. 847 00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:41,160 Did Murdoch? Actually, Yes. 848 00:41:41,240 --> 00:41:43,160 He. Refused to kill the story. 849 00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:48,640 He refused to kill the story. His motivations for what he was 850 00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:50,840 thinking and feeling are somewhat more speculative. 851 00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:54,000 Ultimately, it didn't know that. Ultimately, it doesn't fucking 852 00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,240 matter what he was thinking. He let the story go ahead 853 00:41:56,240 --> 00:41:59,000 because he wasn't trying to control the editorial and The 854 00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:02,760 Newsroom. So like the idea that Murdoch 855 00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:07,200 allowed this to go forward, well, that's a good example of 856 00:42:07,240 --> 00:42:11,880 media operating properly. Things, things like Enron or 857 00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:16,600 Bernie Madoff is where you go like, oh wow, that's complete 858 00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:19,920 financial reporting failure. And that's where I get. 859 00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:22,640 I think you have I think you have one part of the Theranos 860 00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:25,840 story wrong. Did you read any of the press 861 00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:29,560 about Theranos beforehand? Because the reason Sheranos was 862 00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:32,360 able to do what they. Did came out when this was still 863 00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:36,320 only like a $6 billion company or whatever, $15 billion. 864 00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,080 Company, OK, so just 6 billion Sure, sure, sure. 865 00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:43,040 With National it was. Not public there like patient 866 00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:46,000 trials ended under the pressure of the interviews and stuff. 867 00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:48,280 And then that worked, but they were still able to grow a lot 868 00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:51,560 that I guess I think Carrie Rue did great. 869 00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:53,720 But also like what? Like I. 870 00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:56,720 You're coming from a you, you know, PR better than we do. 871 00:42:56,720 --> 00:43:00,600 Like the idea that there's going to be, you know, public 872 00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:03,200 relations work for these massive tech firms. 873 00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:04,440 I like, of course that's going to happen. 874 00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,000 Of course there's going to be positive reporting on dream 875 00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,880 shots that don't make any sense. I that like that I'm not 876 00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:12,320 necessarily surprised by and I'm not even going to push back 877 00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,360 against it that much. Like the idea of, oh, we have 878 00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:18,120 this blood test where all you need is this much blood. 879 00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:20,000 Like, well, that's a fun story to report. 880 00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:21,880 You're right that you should get into the weeds. 881 00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:24,680 And ultimately, Carrie Root did right where you're like, OK, 882 00:43:25,240 --> 00:43:28,840 like ultimately it did happen. And the media like reported 883 00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:33,480 responsibly when it comes to Enron or Bernie Madoff or SPF. 884 00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,120 There was no pushback for a very long time. 885 00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:40,240 I think you're right. And and like, those are better 886 00:43:40,240 --> 00:43:43,600 examples of where we're at now. And that is my concern is that 887 00:43:44,240 --> 00:43:46,120 what if there's no pushback ever? 888 00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:49,000 Like, what if we're past the phases of this where it's like, 889 00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:52,160 sometimes there's pushback on financial criminals and then we 890 00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:54,160 get into a lull and everyone's happy. 891 00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:57,320 But it kind of feels like we're entering this weird hellscape 892 00:43:57,600 --> 00:43:59,760 where. I want to give you some hope. 893 00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:01,720 OK, I actually. Really do, please. 894 00:44:01,720 --> 00:44:05,800 So I'll go into PR in 2009. My job was so much easier for 895 00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,120 the first few years. He was pitching it like I pitch 896 00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:11,520 fucking startups to reporters and the reason I'm good at my 897 00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:15,040 job as I read their stuff and actually pitch them stuff that 898 00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:18,160 would fit him. I also have pretty good quality 899 00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:19,840 bar and if I smell shit I don't work with that. 900 00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:21,920 I don't need that on my soul. Very anxious person. 901 00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:25,680 But over the years you have watched the collapse of the real 902 00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:27,320 glad handling media. It's still there. 903 00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:30,120 The fact that Kara Swisher lasted this long as a disgrace. 904 00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:33,040 Same with Scott Galloway. They are so much worse than. 905 00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:35,120 Bruce And we've got an episode about them. 906 00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:37,960 Bruce. And Newton are, they've fucked 907 00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:40,080 up a lot. And I think Newton when he went 908 00:44:40,080 --> 00:44:43,840 off to Gary Marcus, I think the AI skeptic piece is a morally 909 00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,400 reprehensible thing to do. I think Casey should be a 910 00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:48,960 fucking ashamed of himself. I think he's a coward. 911 00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:50,840 And I want to, well, hopefully we'll have a link. 912 00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:52,040 We're going to have a link in the. 913 00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:56,080 I'm showing about this now. But for people, just just to 914 00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:58,600 your previous discussions about this because I think they're 915 00:44:58,600 --> 00:44:59,840 excellent. Sorry. 916 00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:01,720 I just want to let people know that. 917 00:45:01,720 --> 00:45:02,880 Yeah. Never let and we should talk 918 00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:06,760 about that in a minute, but over time you have seen the growth of 919 00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:11,360 a great deal of critical press. You have seen the fact that the 920 00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:14,640 fact that Meredith Whitaker isn't in the media, right, But 921 00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:16,640 the fact that there were like two or three Meredith Whitaker 922 00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:20,040 profiles every 3 minutes. I think now in Wyatt, just Wyatt 923 00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:22,080 loves writing on Meredith Whitaker thinks this. 924 00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:24,800 That alone is a good sign because Meredith Whitaker is 925 00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:28,600 extremely fucking aggressive. She is extremely aggressive in 926 00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:31,280 anti tech stuff. The fact that Cory Doctorow is 927 00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:33,960 so prevalent, that insertification is so discussed. 928 00:45:34,240 --> 00:45:38,520 This is a sign that criticism of tech is growing and it's 929 00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:41,120 mainstream. The fact that Jon Stewart had 930 00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,800 Lena Khan on, the fact that Lena Khan was so popular with the 931 00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:46,880 media. I'm not saying things are 932 00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:49,400 perfect. I have many critiques, but 933 00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:53,520 compared to when I started, I have never seen a more vivid and 934 00:45:53,720 --> 00:45:57,440 aggressive group of critics. Molly White. 935 00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:00,480 The existence of Molly White is actually kind of magical. 936 00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:02,880 She is a fucking great person, a great writer, a great 937 00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:07,880 researcher, incredibly well known big audience, and also a 938 00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:09,840 woman in tech who knows her tech. 939 00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:12,240 Most fucking men I make. It's fucking brilliant. 940 00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:15,400 Gary Marcus I have a lot of thoughts about, but perhaps I'll 941 00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:18,680 keep to myself. However, the fact that Gary 942 00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:21,680 Marcus is in national newspapers, and that's a good 943 00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:24,680 thing. Criticism has grown. 944 00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:28,520 The critiques have grown. You see, I have a fucking book 945 00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,680 with Penguin Random House called Why Coming Out called Why 946 00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:34,040 everything stopped working. Penguin Random House is putting 947 00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:36,520 money in this shit. They're offline. 948 00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:39,160 It's going to hit its third season probably in the next few 949 00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:43,440 months. IHeartRadio backs that this the 950 00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:46,680 the era of criticism is far from dead. 951 00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,000 It's popular as well. And that's the really thing. 952 00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:53,520 Putting aside morals, I don't believe in things. 953 00:46:53,720 --> 00:46:59,960 I simply exist and then I die. However, it's popular, it does 954 00:46:59,960 --> 00:47:04,800 traffic, it's popular with regular people, which means it's 955 00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:06,680 probably going to stick around and only grow. 956 00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,240 Look, if people don't do this, I'm going to do very well. 957 00:47:09,240 --> 00:47:11,360 I'm very excited about my future doing this shit. 958 00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,360 I love doing it. I do it because I hate what 959 00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:15,600 they've done to the computer. But I also do it because it's 960 00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:17,120 fun to write about and people care. 961 00:47:17,240 --> 00:47:20,120 The reactions I get to my work are fucking insane. 962 00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:23,560 If that is the reaction of consumers, that's amazing. 963 00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:26,160 But also, there are so many bloody critics. 964 00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:30,200 We are far from hopeless. We are far from in some sort of 965 00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:32,840 desert of critiques. In fact, the fact that your 966 00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:36,040 podcast has kept on this long despite how complex and 967 00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:39,160 ridiculous that industry is, is only a sign that this is 968 00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:41,560 absolutely doable. Look at Coffeezilla. 969 00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:46,200 Yeah. Like it isn't perfect, it isn't 970 00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:48,960 right right now, but good Lord, it's better than it was two 971 00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:51,120 years ago and the year before that and the year before that. 972 00:47:51,240 --> 00:47:54,200 It's not like we went from having a bunch of criticism to 973 00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:56,480 not having any. It's trending upwards 974 00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,960 aggressively and there's money in it, there's traffic in it. 975 00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:03,760 There's something here and I trust my gut on this one. 976 00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:05,720 And yeah, it's going to get scary. 977 00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:08,400 It's going to be scary with how Elon Musk's acts. 978 00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:11,640 However, even then, still going to work. 979 00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,280 Like it's I, I actually don't know whether he's going to 980 00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:17,600 really suit reporters. I don't know how they got like 981 00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:18,840 aggressive. He's going to be. 982 00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:21,480 We really don't know yet. That is a question mark. 983 00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:24,040 Yeah, but it's it is a pretty terrifying question it. 984 00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:27,480 Is Oh God, yes. And the and the oligarchy in 985 00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:31,240 general right now that the vibe of like this is really happening 986 00:48:31,240 --> 00:48:35,600 like there is no like hypothetical what if whatever 987 00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:36,840 that we. It's the thing people have 988 00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:38,440 warned about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like we're 989 00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:41,800 here. I think is, is, is quite to me. 990 00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:45,520 I I want to be hopeful and I want to think about ways to 991 00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:49,320 fight back and I and I'm and I appreciate you sharing all of 992 00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:52,720 this. I just, I still like it's hard. 993 00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:56,680 I I you, you live in Nevada at I live in California. 994 00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,640 Bennett and I covered there was an attempt to make a blockchain 995 00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:06,280 city in Reno, NV, right, years ago that failed utterly. 996 00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:08,280 I don't know how much money is left in all of that. 997 00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:11,640 I think there's still some semblance of something, but it's 998 00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:14,400 not what it was going to be. But here in California now 999 00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:17,480 what's happening is they're doing something called 1000 00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:21,040 California Forever. And it's brought to you by like 1001 00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:24,240 Marc Andreessen and, you know, all these tech Bros. 1002 00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:27,640 And the concept is quite similar in that it is going to be a 1003 00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:30,120 smart city. It is going to exist South of 1004 00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:32,040 the Bay. So they hopefully don't have to 1005 00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:35,840 deal with, you know, things like societal issues like homeless 1006 00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:40,760 people and drug use and things that come with not having hyper 1007 00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:42,440 wealthy individuals in your neighborhood. 1008 00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,160 So they're hoping to fix that by creating their own city of 1009 00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:52,320 strictly hyper wealthy people. And I can't help but feel quite 1010 00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:55,560 pessimistic about like, these are the people in control of the 1011 00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:58,840 reins of power. Like they they're the ones now 1012 00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:03,640 whispering in Trump's ear. And while voicing criticism is 1013 00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:07,920 of course necessary and I'm all for it and that's what we do, It 1014 00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:10,160 does sometimes feel like you're screaming into a void. 1015 00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:12,040 Don't you feel like that sometimes, Ed or no? 1016 00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:14,400 Sure. Like, of course, when I started 1017 00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:17,200 the show, I felt like that. Just the punk music. 1018 00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:22,240 Yeah, yeah, punk's hopeful punk. Punk is not ever accepting the 1019 00:50:22,240 --> 00:50:24,520 fact that he's never pretending that things are great. 1020 00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:27,320 But the message and the verve and the rhythm and everything 1021 00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:29,920 behind punk music is the fuck this fight back. 1022 00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:32,480 You can look at these things and be scared. 1023 00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:35,520 It's fair to be scared. It's fair to feel pessimism. 1024 00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:39,080 OK, Accept that. So we just fucking give up. 1025 00:50:39,720 --> 00:50:41,360 We assume that nothing will work. 1026 00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:44,160 Hell no. We have to at least fucking try. 1027 00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:47,200 It is scary. But the thing I just said about 1028 00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:51,360 critiques and more, that was me trying to say critics. 1029 00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:53,080 And I tried to save it, but it didn't work. 1030 00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:55,000 Anyway. I think I just said about 1031 00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,200 critics and how we've never had more. 1032 00:50:58,720 --> 00:51:01,920 That is only going to increase as things get more challenging. 1033 00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:04,240 And yeah, it is scary. Yeah, there are things that 1034 00:51:04,240 --> 00:51:06,400 could go horribly wrong. I'm not going to lie and be 1035 00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:07,960 like, everything's going to be fine. 1036 00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:12,320 Nobody will be her, but we have to, if anything, have an 1037 00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:16,280 emotional shift where it's like in our small parts of what we 1038 00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:19,800 do, we have to fight back. We have to at the very least 1039 00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:23,760 document what is happening in detail with what we believe in 1040 00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:26,440 it, with the context that matters to give people 1041 00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:28,440 something. Because guess what? 1042 00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:32,000 If we as people who have any kind of audience feel some lack 1043 00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:34,880 of hope what how our listeners feel. 1044 00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:39,080 Yeah, how do they? Feel so no, I will not sit here 1045 00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:41,760 and and just be like, Oh well, nothing, which I fuck that. 1046 00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,360 I don't know if it'll work, but I should fucking try. 1047 00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:48,080 And for for guys who are so pessimistic about this, you do 1048 00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:51,320 seem to be trying very hard and you still continue to try. 1049 00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:54,440 So I understand your pessimism. I really do. 1050 00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:58,760 I deeply, deeply do. But the best thing you can do is 1051 00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:00,320 keep going because you know what? 1052 00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:02,000 The only other choice is giving up. 1053 00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:04,360 This is honest, honest to God why I wanted to have you on 1054 00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:08,840 because I I felt like after it it we had two brilliant minds on 1055 00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:11,240 Joey Palatano and Sean. Tuffy. 1056 00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:16,160 And we were discussing just this administration and just there 1057 00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:18,000 was nothing good to say, you know what I mean? 1058 00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:21,320 There's, there's, there is nothing positive to say other 1059 00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:24,160 than like maybe they self implode and even that's going to 1060 00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:27,960 be a disaster, you know, and, and, and so I think we need to 1061 00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:30,960 have someone on to say, yes, that's all true. 1062 00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:36,720 We're not denying that, but it's OK to try to fight back and talk 1063 00:52:36,720 --> 00:52:41,280 loud and and be the the the voice of like the voice of 1064 00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:44,040 reason amongst a world of crazy. I don't know. 1065 00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:45,160 Clarity. Yeah. 1066 00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:49,760 Because you want to know why the the right has been so effective 1067 00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:52,600 with media. It really is much more simple 1068 00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:54,880 than racism. It's because there are a lot of 1069 00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:57,440 people who have a worse experience living than they 1070 00:52:57,440 --> 00:52:58,160 should. Most. 1071 00:52:58,280 --> 00:53:01,800 There are tons of people, young men, tons of them both, plenty 1072 00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:03,720 of people who just feel like the world is kicking them in the 1073 00:53:03,720 --> 00:53:06,960 nuts all the time and you want to know how that's done? 1074 00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:08,880 Tech. Tech is a great weapon for it 1075 00:53:09,160 --> 00:53:11,040 now, but they don't know really where to push it. 1076 00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,960 They go to the left, centre left things and they have a bunch of 1077 00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:18,240 people saying positivity stuff, which is good and we should hear 1078 00:53:18,240 --> 00:53:22,000 that, but doesn't really seem to address their problems, doesn't 1079 00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:24,120 really seem to address them. I agree with that. 1080 00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:27,200 Even like they're smart. There is a lot of condescension 1081 00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:29,960 in the media and that sometimes is not the Libra. 1082 00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:33,760 When someone reads a big story of facts and they have no idea 1083 00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:37,720 what the fuck to do with that, they feel stupid and why 1084 00:53:37,720 --> 00:53:40,440 wouldn't you? You have a bunch slop of facts. 1085 00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:42,920 So they go and they listen to Joe Rogan and listen to Theo 1086 00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:46,320 Von. They go, wow this guy, he asks 1087 00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:49,000 really obvious questions. When I spoke to Zephyr teacher, 1088 00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:52,520 an expert on anti corruption, now my first question was what's 1089 00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:55,720 corruption? There are so many questions that 1090 00:53:55,720 --> 00:53:59,120 media fails to ask and so many ways in which they fail their 1091 00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:03,080 readers and their listeners by not just being like, you know 1092 00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:05,680 what, yeah, your shit sucks. Here's why. 1093 00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:08,680 Here's something that you experienced when I did never 1094 00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:10,760 forgive them. And I did that laptop bit. 1095 00:54:11,240 --> 00:54:13,600 I what I did was I got a cheap ass laptop and I ran through 1096 00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:16,040 exactly how dog shit it was, how much you advertise to how slow 1097 00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:17,840 this was. And extrapolate from there that 1098 00:54:17,840 --> 00:54:20,640 hundreds of millions of people very likely have this experience 1099 00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:24,080 that I have never got such a response to. 1100 00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:26,480 I thought it was a pretty obvious idea when I did it. 1101 00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:28,840 I'm like, this is just going to seem like what the fuck? 1102 00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:31,960 My agent emailed me and people go, wow, that was so good. 1103 00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:35,000 And the reason was is because instead of just being like and 1104 00:54:35,000 --> 00:54:38,400 every computer is fine because that's, if you look at the 1105 00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:41,120 reviews of the Acer Aspire 1, they're good. 1106 00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:45,400 They give them high scores. They treat these things as if 1107 00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:48,160 the premise of people's existence, that people know 1108 00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:49,800 regular people know fucking sucks. 1109 00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:52,680 They treat it like it's normal. And that does isolate people. 1110 00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:54,480 And then over on the right, you've got people giving them 1111 00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:59,320 extremely convenient excuses. Migrants, the woke, the trans in 1112 00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:02,440 the bathroom, what have you. Things that make them feel 1113 00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:04,360 better. I'm not saying that's right, but 1114 00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:07,680 it's far more effective than being like, well, when you look 1115 00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:09,960 at the facts, actually, your life's very good. 1116 00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:12,920 The economy is great for you. You should be happy. 1117 00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:17,480 The will stancil brain is so much more fucking common and 1118 00:55:17,480 --> 00:55:20,280 it's everywhere in the media. And guess what? 1119 00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:23,640 If you talk down to people and you don't actually teach them 1120 00:55:23,640 --> 00:55:25,880 anything, you go, you should know this already. 1121 00:55:26,240 --> 00:55:29,080 You should. You don't explain these things 1122 00:55:29,240 --> 00:55:31,320 as they're human beings because guess what? 1123 00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:33,400 Just because you're a real smart motherfucker doesn't mean that 1124 00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:36,520 you know everything. This is this is so it So I had 1125 00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:41,120 an opportunity to talk to Allison Morrow at CNN and she 1126 00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:44,360 published this piece and one of the things I said to her was, 1127 00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:47,960 you know, when I started covering crypto and like being 1128 00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:50,320 critical of it. One of and I know you'll 1129 00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:51,920 appreciate this because you're in Vegas. 1130 00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:56,200 One of the things that I was, I felt like I was trying to do was 1131 00:55:56,200 --> 00:55:58,440 convince these people that what they were doing was going to 1132 00:55:58,440 --> 00:56:00,720 cost them money and they were going to lose money and stuff. 1133 00:56:01,360 --> 00:56:05,280 And that suddenly at some point I realized I was yelling at 1134 00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:08,600 gamblers in a casino on a slot machine and telling them like, 1135 00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:11,720 yo, that slot machine, you're going to lose money at it. 1136 00:56:11,720 --> 00:56:14,160 And they were like, do you think I don't understand what a 1137 00:56:14,160 --> 00:56:16,920 fucking slot machine is, my guy? They're addicted to stuff. 1138 00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:21,080 Yeah, and, and, and for like I had to have the recognition to 1139 00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:23,480 be like, I'm not doing this effectively. 1140 00:56:23,640 --> 00:56:26,400 If I'm trying to reach out to the people in the casino, I've 1141 00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:30,520 lost, I need to reach out to the people not in the casino yet and 1142 00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:34,560 tell them what the casino is offering for real versus like, 1143 00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:39,520 OK, I want to try to stop these people from hurting themselves 1144 00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:41,600 already when they're they're fully aware of what they're 1145 00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:43,800 doing. And I and I think you make like, 1146 00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:47,760 yeah, like there's a compelling point of like, we're almost in 1147 00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:50,840 that part of the cycle with media as well. 1148 00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:54,520 I agree with you and I want to take like a slight aside from it 1149 00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:56,400 as well. Yeah, what I'm really getting at 1150 00:56:56,400 --> 00:57:00,080 is the one of your things you've done well and something I did 1151 00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:01,640 when I wrote about crypto is crypto. 1152 00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:04,520 The condition of crypto is not really about tech, it's about 1153 00:57:04,520 --> 00:57:08,200 society. It's about the fact that wealth 1154 00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:11,400 accumulation in the modern world is bordering on impossible. 1155 00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:13,200 It was meant to be. You go to college, you work 1156 00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:16,480 hard, get married, you have 2.4 children, you buy a house, it 1157 00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:19,840 works like clockwork. Then it was like, we'll do day 1158 00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:22,240 trading. The media did a dog shit job of 1159 00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:24,360 stopping people day trading in the 2000s. 1160 00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:27,640 I'll just give money to my financial advisor. 1161 00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:30,720 Not that the media ever really explained what one of those was, 1162 00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:32,960 what it did, what good look like, what bad look like. 1163 00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:38,320 OK, well I'll work really. I I'll go to college, I guess. 1164 00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:40,520 Oh, I went to college and I still can't get a job. 1165 00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:44,800 Well, my shit's more expensive. But I read the news and the news 1166 00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:48,440 says that actually my shit's better than it was, But I feel 1167 00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:51,840 bad. In the case of crypto, it was I 1168 00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:54,720 can't accumulate wealth, so I'm going to go in the big illegal 1169 00:57:54,720 --> 00:57:56,560 slot machine and I'm going to fucking try because I'm 1170 00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:59,480 desperate and scared. And by approaching people and 1171 00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:03,000 going new, new, new idiots would touch this new. 1172 00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:05,280 You couldn't possibly or alternatively being like, if 1173 00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:07,360 you'd invested in the theory of 1000 days ago, you could have 1174 00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:11,560 made this much money. Both of those are wrong, as is 1175 00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:14,440 the humouring of the idea of crypto was some sort of valid 1176 00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:16,960 thing. There is probably some value to 1177 00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:20,080 saying yeah if you want to try a big illegal slot machine this 1178 00:58:20,080 --> 00:58:22,000 might work. If you get lucky in the way that 1179 00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:25,640 people often are not, or if you have some way in early on a 1180 00:58:25,640 --> 00:58:28,800 project, sure. This is honestly just a scaling 1181 00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:30,840 of allowing people access to cons. 1182 00:58:30,840 --> 00:58:33,520 That's what it is. Because people feel conned by 1183 00:58:33,520 --> 00:58:36,600 society. So there is now a legal con you 1184 00:58:36,600 --> 00:58:39,680 can join. And now that Lina Khan is gone 1185 00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:42,760 and now that the SEC no longer has Gensler, well, they'll be 1186 00:58:42,760 --> 00:58:45,440 allowed to sell more cons to more people and more people will 1187 00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:48,080 lose money. But it's rarely explained as a 1188 00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:50,920 financial and social and psychological condition. 1189 00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:54,600 It's rarely explained in a way that actually has empathy for 1190 00:58:54,600 --> 00:58:57,480 the people involved. I was on crypto groups in 1191 00:58:57,480 --> 00:58:59,920 telegrams and Rutger Hauer speech and then Blade Runner, 1192 00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:02,840 things I've seen. But it's like you'd see guys in 1193 00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:07,400 India and the Philippines screaming, they'd be like, I've 1194 00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:09,920 lost, I put my money into this. I need this to work the 1195 00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:14,560 desperation off of these people. How does that that is more 1196 00:59:14,560 --> 00:59:16,440 indicative of the problem than anything. 1197 00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:19,240 And journalists don't seem to have this inherent. 1198 00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:20,640 And this is something I said in the piece. 1199 00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:22,240 Well, there's no love for the user. 1200 00:59:22,240 --> 00:59:25,000 There's no concern for the user. There's no thought of like if 1201 00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:28,040 someone reads this, if someone reads this and makes a bad 1202 00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:30,560 decision, I've hurt them. It goes back to when I was 1203 00:59:30,560 --> 00:59:33,040 reviewing video games. I used to fucking crush shit. 1204 00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:35,640 And I used to say when I'd get in a lot of trouble for it was 1205 00:59:36,400 --> 00:59:41,040 actually 30 quid, £40 mate. Like that's a lot of, we get 1206 00:59:41,040 --> 00:59:42,840 these games for free, but people pay for these. 1207 00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:44,880 This might be the only game they can afford this year. 1208 00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:46,280 Do you want it? And do you want them to buy some 1209 00:59:46,280 --> 00:59:47,440 shit? And they'd be like, you're being 1210 00:59:47,440 --> 00:59:48,680 dramatic. And perhaps I was. 1211 00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:54,040 But it needs to get back to who are we actually writing for? 1212 00:59:54,480 --> 00:59:57,080 Who is this for? What is the net effect of what 1213 00:59:57,080 --> 00:59:59,640 we are doing every day? Because people feel fucking 1214 00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:02,640 hopeless and people are aware that the media is not really 1215 01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:05,080 serving them. The right wing media feels like 1216 01:00:05,080 --> 01:00:08,080 it's serving people. Yeah, it's serving them to their 1217 01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:10,000 like, but it has the appearance of it. 1218 01:00:10,200 --> 01:00:13,920 Andrew Tate is famous because he offers grown men things that 13 1219 01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:16,920 year olds want. Sex, boobs, cigar, money, pile 1220 01:00:16,920 --> 01:00:19,640 of money, strong man, strong man lift all the time. 1221 01:00:19,840 --> 01:00:26,680 Not gay, not Nope. No, that's not what this. 1222 01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:29,520 Is kiss man? No, it really is like the the 1223 01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:33,000 not gay song from from a pop star. 1224 01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:35,520 Have you ever seen it? But that's the thing. 1225 01:00:35,520 --> 01:00:39,040 It's like this very basic thing, and it works because guess what? 1226 01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:43,080 When you look at the rest of the media, it's like, OK, I'm a 1227 01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:45,560 miserable motherfucker and I have no hope. 1228 01:00:45,560 --> 01:00:49,000 Where am I going to look? Oh wait, convening excuses over 1229 01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:50,640 here. And this isn't even a new 1230 01:00:50,640 --> 01:00:53,040 phenomenon. MGTOW has been around a long 1231 01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:55,520 fucking time. The media needs to start 1232 01:00:55,520 --> 01:00:58,120 operating on a principle of how about this? 1233 01:00:58,600 --> 01:01:00,800 Regular people are reading this and making decisions. 1234 01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:04,240 The result of what I write. My last question is, you talk 1235 01:01:04,240 --> 01:01:07,520 about this easy solution that the right offers for a lot of 1236 01:01:07,520 --> 01:01:10,360 this stuff. And generally I would say that 1237 01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:13,800 Bennett and I are left-leaning, but Crypto Critics Corner is 1238 01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:16,240 just a podcast about. Crypto. 1239 01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:21,360 And whatever, what do you think is the way to like, what is the 1240 01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:25,400 alternative to that simple like blanket like, Oh yeah, we'll 1241 01:01:25,400 --> 01:01:29,120 blame the immigrants or we'll blame the whoever, like they're 1242 01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:32,480 the problems. So what is the alternative to 1243 01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:34,200 that? Like how do you have a simple 1244 01:01:35,040 --> 01:01:37,440 forthright statement that you can counter that with? 1245 01:01:37,440 --> 01:01:39,920 Because I think especially with something like crypto, it's 1246 01:01:39,920 --> 01:01:43,280 quite difficult to have a counter to something like that. 1247 01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:44,200 You know what I mean? I'm. 1248 01:01:44,200 --> 01:01:47,880 Going to speak a little broadly because crypto is just its own 1249 01:01:47,880 --> 01:01:51,280 freaky condition and also the damage has been done so 1250 01:01:51,280 --> 01:01:53,800 thoroughly that it's going to take decades to work it out. 1251 01:01:54,600 --> 01:01:58,680 When people failed on crypto, they failed society and people 1252 01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:00,920 are losing money all the time and the rich people are getting 1253 01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:03,960 richer because of it. It's a disgrace, like really 1254 01:02:03,960 --> 01:02:07,920 disgusting. But on a wider scale, what these 1255 01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:11,080 people on the right do is they do sell hope that there are 1256 01:02:11,080 --> 01:02:13,800 answers and some of them are made-up. 1257 01:02:13,800 --> 01:02:17,200 But what they actually do is they talk to their people. 1258 01:02:17,200 --> 01:02:19,240 And I must be clear, I'm not advocating for any of these 1259 01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:21,520 people. But what actually is a really 1260 01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:23,520 good place to start? One of my least favorite things 1261 01:02:23,520 --> 01:02:25,120 is people saying Joe Rogan's bad. 1262 01:02:25,760 --> 01:02:27,880 He's a fucking dumbass and the people he brings on are 1263 01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:29,280 sometimes bigger dumbasses than him. 1264 01:02:29,480 --> 01:02:32,160 He's a pretty good interviewer. It's a well produced show. 1265 01:02:32,840 --> 01:02:35,800 It's high quality. It don't know if the contents 1266 01:02:35,800 --> 01:02:37,240 high quality, but it's well mastered. 1267 01:02:37,240 --> 01:02:40,000 But also, Joe Rogan will sit there and go, why'd that happen? 1268 01:02:40,120 --> 01:02:43,120 Yeah, that's crazy. Guess what? 1269 01:02:43,120 --> 01:02:45,560 That's how most people, even the most intelligent people you are, 1270 01:02:45,560 --> 01:02:46,240 are. They don't know. 1271 01:02:46,280 --> 01:02:49,520 Not everyone knows everything. So if you start from this 1272 01:02:49,520 --> 01:02:52,880 position of hey, I should ask questions that seem very 1273 01:02:52,880 --> 01:02:55,520 obvious, we'll help your reader and we'll help you list them. 1274 01:02:55,520 --> 01:02:59,640 On top of that, the right wing people sell hope, horrible hope, 1275 01:02:59,640 --> 01:03:01,880 corrupt hope. But something that there is an 1276 01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:04,480 answer, there can be answers that you are not bereft of 1277 01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:06,720 industry. And they use that to mechanise 1278 01:03:06,760 --> 01:03:08,240 anger. But guess what? 1279 01:03:08,920 --> 01:03:11,880 There is actual space of positive masculinity and 1280 01:03:11,880 --> 01:03:13,920 positive masculinity and was like, oh, you're turning gay. 1281 01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:16,400 If only. If only it was that easy. 1282 01:03:16,800 --> 01:03:19,320 Jesus Christ. Seems like I had more fun. 1283 01:03:20,240 --> 01:03:22,320 I love clothes, seems like I love them. 1284 01:03:22,320 --> 01:03:24,160 I could dress more interestingly, it'd be way more 1285 01:03:24,160 --> 01:03:27,480 fucking fun. But the point is, men in general 1286 01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:29,680 are so scared of discussing their emotions because they're 1287 01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:32,160 cowards. They're cowards. 1288 01:03:32,160 --> 01:03:35,240 But also men can't even discuss hope or inspiration. 1289 01:03:35,400 --> 01:03:38,960 These things have been taken from the US by the right because 1290 01:03:38,960 --> 01:03:42,000 the left is not all of the left. I think some of them are like 1291 01:03:42,320 --> 01:03:45,400 Hassan is, and I've agreed on everything, but he gets people 1292 01:03:45,400 --> 01:03:47,280 in interest. And he had a really good 1293 01:03:47,280 --> 01:03:49,480 interview on Pod Save America, which is a sentence I never 1294 01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:51,840 thought I'd say. And what he did was he blank, 1295 01:03:51,840 --> 01:03:54,400 blankly explained the errors that were made in a way that was 1296 01:03:54,400 --> 01:03:57,520 very digestible. But fundamentally, if we want to 1297 01:03:57,520 --> 01:04:00,200 fight back about against this, we have to give people hope, but 1298 01:04:00,200 --> 01:04:02,360 we also have to treat them like human fucking beings. 1299 01:04:02,360 --> 01:04:05,080 And the things we make need to speak to their problems and 1300 01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:06,760 actually what's happening to them. 1301 01:04:07,160 --> 01:04:10,280 Rather than this, I should write about the markets. 1302 01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:14,240 What the where's AI going? Who gives a fuck if you can't 1303 01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:16,640 prove where it's going? Say it could go here, but here's 1304 01:04:16,640 --> 01:04:19,960 where it could also not go. When you describe the things 1305 01:04:19,960 --> 01:04:22,440 you're describing, describe them in terms that actually apply to 1306 01:04:22,440 --> 01:04:24,880 a person to be reading it. Oh, but the business people are 1307 01:04:24,880 --> 01:04:27,440 reading it. I do public relations of B to B 1308 01:04:27,440 --> 01:04:28,600 products as well. Guess what? 1309 01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:30,240 Same funk. They're also human. 1310 01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:32,520 You wouldn't believe it. You wouldn't believe that the 1311 01:04:32,520 --> 01:04:34,840 business people also read stuff and want to explain to them. 1312 01:04:34,840 --> 01:04:37,720 Simply. Matt Levine is one of the best 1313 01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:42,280 living financial writers and his stuff is so straightforward and 1314 01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:45,080 so fun and so human. It's brilliant. 1315 01:04:45,080 --> 01:04:47,800 And yeah, it's written. Fucking traders and financial 1316 01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:50,840 perverts just like me. I'm the perverts side. 1317 01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:53,920 But the point I'm getting to slowly is hope, excitement, 1318 01:04:54,600 --> 01:04:57,880 caring. These are things out of the 1319 01:04:57,880 --> 01:05:01,440 media right now on the left in the centre, it doesn't feel like 1320 01:05:01,520 --> 01:05:04,400 many people writing about tech actually give a fuck about the 1321 01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:06,600 computer. And guess what regular people 1322 01:05:06,600 --> 01:05:08,240 do? Regular people love the 1323 01:05:08,240 --> 01:05:10,160 computer. They wish the computer wasn't so 1324 01:05:10,160 --> 01:05:11,920 annoying. They wish the computer was it. 1325 01:05:11,920 --> 01:05:14,240 They want to go back to Facebook working and Instagram working. 1326 01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:16,480 They still get value out of these things, even though they 1327 01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:19,200 fucking suck. So coming at it and saying, 1328 01:05:19,520 --> 01:05:22,560 listen, this thing you experience every day that pisses 1329 01:05:22,560 --> 01:05:25,640 you off, I have an answer. I have a person look at this 1330 01:05:25,720 --> 01:05:28,520 asshole. But also, you're not stupid. 1331 01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:30,760 You are not stupid for feeling bad. 1332 01:05:30,760 --> 01:05:34,000 Do you know how annoying it must be for someone who's struggling 1333 01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:37,360 to pay their fucking bills to read ACNN article Going well, 1334 01:05:37,360 --> 01:05:40,600 actually, the economy's great. Is there a is there a problem 1335 01:05:40,600 --> 01:05:42,200 with the economy? Oh fuck you. 1336 01:05:42,640 --> 01:05:45,400 God damn. What a disgraceful, 1337 01:05:45,480 --> 01:05:47,680 condescending way of looking at people. 1338 01:05:47,800 --> 01:05:50,000 And it's how a lot of the media works. 1339 01:05:50,160 --> 01:05:54,120 And it's a disgrace because it could be so much better and so 1340 01:05:54,120 --> 01:05:56,200 much good would be done because guess what? 1341 01:05:56,200 --> 01:05:58,920 A lot of these corporations, they really don't want bad 1342 01:05:58,920 --> 01:06:00,760 headlines. They're fucking terrified of 1343 01:06:00,760 --> 01:06:01,920 them. You think the CEO of the 1344 01:06:01,920 --> 01:06:03,480 company's sitting there looking at the numbers? 1345 01:06:03,480 --> 01:06:06,960 No, they look at CNN and USA TODAY and if USA TODAY says 1346 01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:09,360 they're a fucking bell end for doing something, they'll freak 1347 01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:11,720 the fuck out. Their wife, who they barely talk 1348 01:06:11,720 --> 01:06:15,320 to, We'll e-mail them through their assistant that this 1349 01:06:15,320 --> 01:06:17,160 article came out and now they're embarrassed. 1350 01:06:17,280 --> 01:06:19,720 And now Tarquin and Krebtin, their children are at school 1351 01:06:19,720 --> 01:06:24,240 being made fun of. And that's the thing, I know I'm 1352 01:06:24,240 --> 01:06:26,840 saying a lot of random stuff, but fundamentally the way that 1353 01:06:26,840 --> 01:06:30,400 we as communicates, whereas people in the media treat people 1354 01:06:30,840 --> 01:06:34,320 needs to be more human and needs to approach the real fucking 1355 01:06:34,320 --> 01:06:37,360 consequences of these things. Perhaps Tether isn't bothering 1356 01:06:37,360 --> 01:06:39,240 people. Perhaps Tether doesn't really 1357 01:06:39,240 --> 01:06:41,120 scare the average person. But you know what does? 1358 01:06:41,920 --> 01:06:47,240 Some poor mother fucker inside the Celsius lawsuit in the 1359 01:06:47,240 --> 01:06:50,160 bankruptcy thing talking about how they they fucking lost 1360 01:06:50,160 --> 01:06:52,680 everything. The emails I got when I wrote 1361 01:06:52,680 --> 01:06:55,800 about fucking Celsius and it's like Molly White and the things 1362 01:06:55,800 --> 01:06:58,680 she's found. The responses I got were like 1363 01:06:58,720 --> 01:07:01,080 fuck I finally get this. This is horrible. 1364 01:07:01,200 --> 01:07:03,440 It's no longer just crypto perverts who are losing their 1365 01:07:03,440 --> 01:07:05,600 money. It's real people who were conned 1366 01:07:05,600 --> 01:07:10,760 by something that seemed honest. That is what is lacking the 1367 01:07:10,840 --> 01:07:15,160 actual consequences and acting as if there are them, rather 1368 01:07:15,160 --> 01:07:18,640 than what you hope will happen in an industry and what you 1369 01:07:18,640 --> 01:07:20,160 would like the world to look like. 1370 01:07:20,200 --> 01:07:22,600 Well, it seems like it's good of a place to wrap it up as any. 1371 01:07:22,600 --> 01:07:26,840 Make sure to check out Better Offline and Where's Your Ed for 1372 01:07:26,840 --> 01:07:29,400 your podcasting and newsletter needs and. 1373 01:07:29,440 --> 01:07:32,440 Betteroffline.com That's where I put all my links because there's 1374 01:07:32,440 --> 01:07:34,600 too many of them now. And thank you very much for 1375 01:07:34,600 --> 01:07:36,800 joining us, Ed. My absolute pleasure. 1376 01:07:36,800 --> 01:07:37,360 Love coming on?