Some More News - Twitter Troubles, The Balloon Wars, And EVEN MORE Woke Chatbots

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

Hi. On today's episode, Katy and Cody discuss the latest happenings over at Musk HQ (including the big guy's anger at not being as popular as he wants to be), the not-so-terrifyin...g spy balloon (#kisstheballoon), and things right-wingers are irrationally angry about this week. Plus, we talk briefly at the end about the devastating earthquake and sending aid to Turkey and Syria. Here are some links, if you're able to donate: Doctors Without Borders: https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/secure/turkey-syria-earthquake-onetime Direct Relief: https://www.directrelief.org/emergency/turkey-syria-earthquake/ Mercy Corps: https://www.mercycorps.org/donate/catastrophic-earthquake-strikes-syria Turkish Red Crescent: https://www.kizilay.org.tr/Bagis The Syrian American Medical Society: https://fundraise.givesmart.com/vf/EarthquakeSyria Please fill out our SURVEY: https://kastmedia.com/survey/ Support us on our PATREON: http://patreon.com/somemorenews Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews?ref_id=9949 SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh  Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news  Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews Stop paying full price for streaming services and only getting access to a fraction of their content. Get your money's worth at https://expressvpn.com/morenews and get three extra months of ExpressVPN free. Explore a variety of NextEvo products for better sleep, less stress, or a boost to daily wellness in 2023. Go to https://NextEvo.com/podcast and use promo code MORENEWS to get 20% off your first order of $40 or more. Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions - and manage your expenses the easy way - by going to https://rocketmoney.com/MORENEWS.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey guys, welcome back to even more news, the first and only news podcast. I'm Katie Stoll and I've got a chill vibe. Katie Stoll, that's right. My name is cody welcome to everybody that katie you talked to and anyone else who's just popping in now that's right that about covers all of you potentially yeah before we started i was just saying to the guys like no guests today let's just keep it chill let's just like have a. Let's just have a chat about the news, though. About, well, I guess if we have to.
Starting point is 00:00:49 I mean, it's in the title. I'm sorry. Chill vibe, Katie. I'm leaning in now. You also couldn't tell because you're listening and not watching me like the guys are on the Zoom. I was leaning back. Oh, they could tell. You could hear it.
Starting point is 00:01:00 They could tell? You could tell. But you can also tell the difference in my voice now that I'm leaning forward. I'm sure. I'm sure of it. They could tell. You could tell. But you can also tell the difference in my voice now that I'm leaning forward. I'm sure. I'm sure of it. Hey, Jonathan. Hey, what's up? Jonathan is also here.
Starting point is 00:01:12 Oh, yeah. That's right. I never leave. You never leave. I stay in this Zoom room all week. Yeah, that's where we keep you. I mean, you're a full-time employee. I assume that means full-time.
Starting point is 00:01:25 Full-time. Oh, yeah. I mean, if you logged on at 3 employee. I assume that means full-time. Full-time. Oh, yeah. I mean, if you logged on at 3 a.m., you'd see me sleeping. Better. I'll test that tonight. I find that comforting. Oh. I find it disturbing, but better.
Starting point is 00:01:39 You could whisper and see if I wake up. John. Hey, John. Jonathan, who's our guest? We need someone to talk to. We need someone to talk to. John. Hey, John. Jonathan, who's our guest? We need someone. What time is it? We talked, John. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:47 This is an ASMR podcast now. I do sometimes think that that would be a chill pivot just to producing ASMR content. Would it still be about the news? Sure. It could be. That's a niche hop. That sounds kind of conflicting. Like a really nice, pleasant voice.
Starting point is 00:02:06 There's a Chinese spy balloon, and it is dangerous. It is dropping bombs. And Brandon is too weak of a little baby to do anything about it. Until he does. to do anything about it until he does. In which case he's waited too long and showed weakness by not blowing it up and hurting people who might have been on the ground below it.
Starting point is 00:02:33 So, but the point is bad, bad guy, bad man. Oh, Jonathan's petting his mic. Jonathan's petting his mic yeah uh-huh jonathan that's what they do right it's petting his mic okay uh different tone of voice waking everyone up and good morrow good day it is a good day february 9th national pizza day National Pizza Day. Hey. Mother Mia.
Starting point is 00:03:06 That's cool. I like pizza. Maybe I'll have pizza today. Also National Toothache Day. Brush your teeth after yours. Do you have a toothache? No, but I have a toothache in the episode of Some More News that came out yesterday. That's right, you do.
Starting point is 00:03:27 It's tooth related about how being poor is so expensive. So check it out, America and other nations, actually. And then once you're done checking that out, on February 10th, you can check out your home warranty because, yes, folks, it's National Home Warranty Day. Check it out. Check it all out. Okay. Whose day is this?
Starting point is 00:03:48 None of these are our friends. Yeah, I would be surprised if it was... I'm surprised we can even call them our friends at this point. Oh, I think I established a rapport. Yeah, no, there's no... I would feel comfortable um like calling them for like a favor or uh like a ride to the airport or something like that i would feel comfortable asking them about it i can't think of the name of the company anymore um like wet cat
Starting point is 00:04:16 what is it wildcat was pretty close pretty close i was gonna say wool cot close okay so in 2016 2 to 10 home buyers warranty created national home warranty day to remind home homeowners annually about the ways to protect each other and each every valuable component of their home 210 home warranty okay great 2-10.com check them out or don't in my research i do often find the origins of these holidays and i debate whether to include them or not and then every time you look it up i'm like i should have included it's only when it's it's only when it's like specifically like okay which company that is like oh sure this day like national pizza day everybody loves pizza um but yeah it's on them i'm gonna go check out my non that home warranty there you go it keeps me engaged being able to
Starting point is 00:05:12 look up these uh fascinating facts about 2-10 home warranty oh that takes a lot of pressure off me then that makes me feel yeah yeah good and it gives us something to do here you know oh my gosh, I know. Because we're not going to talk about the news, so. Stop bringing up the news. Maybe they'll forget. What's the one more day, though? February 10th.
Starting point is 00:05:35 National Flannel Day. That's fine. Okay. I feel like every day is kind of National Flannel Day, but everyone's. It can be. Everyone's always wearing flannels yeah there's no day where somebody somewhere isn't wearing a flannel but i would say february 10th is the day where you you're supposed to you're contractually obligated to wear a flannel
Starting point is 00:06:00 this is your contract that you signed with the united states government or whatever government where you reside that's how it works we're reading about flannel right now sorry yeah uh 10 miles stare when you research flannel every website is like talks about grunge in the early 90s and i don't feel like that's how most people think about flannel these days. In the 90s, people thought that Eddie Vedder always wearing the flannel. But now it's a very common clothing fabric.
Starting point is 00:06:33 I've got so many flannels and I have had them since well before I moved to the mountains. In fact, I wear them less in the mountains because it's less warm than other things I could wear. Oh yeah, it's probably not really for your i could wear oh yeah it's probably it's not not really for your situation so you're finding anything interesting cody not really a lot of charts about flannel it's not only made from wool you could look this up before the show but then
Starting point is 00:06:57 that's not exciting there's no suspense there we're not bringing we're not bringing the listeners into the experience right fair yeah we're all on an adventure together right now i might be leading the way with my machete through the jungle but we're all on the adventure and we've discovered uh that flannel was first seen in whales so what first seen in whales not like like the name like w-a-l yeah yeah not like oh they didn't like find it in a whale that's absolutely what i thought you meant yeah it's like in uh discovered in whales yeah like an avatar too that what the the substance that they were trying to glean from those whales were was all flannel fluid flannelium this is reminding me of the other night i was at trivia mountain trivia and uh i don't
Starting point is 00:07:52 need why i qualified well i'm in the mountains i'm not in los angeles anymore and trivia about mountains but no in the mountains the quest one of the questions was like what uh famous singer was killed by a fan in 1988 which the answer is john lennon yeah but and i know that answer took me a while i thought of it as what famous singer was killed by like a fan blade like like what a ridiculous way for me to interpret that question like like absurd but it's the same as it i'm only sharing this very vulnerable story because i found in wales yeah also you've mentioned before that the trivia up there is often wrong and i assume you just said 1988 instead of 1980 which is when john lennon was shot but if they said 1988 you'd be able to challenge that exactly i'm pretty sure they did say 1988 oh well then they're
Starting point is 00:08:51 highly wrong that's wrong that's many years after john lennon was killed i mean maybe somebody but obviously i wasn't listening very well because of the way i interpreted it also i i tweeted this so i'm just gonna since we're on the topic one of the questions I interpreted it. Also, I tweeted this, so I'm just going to, since we're on the topic. One of the questions was, who sang On My Own with Patti LaBelle? And I went, Eponine. Nobody. From a late mix. Yeah, and it was awful, but everybody just looked at me.
Starting point is 00:09:23 yeah and it was awful but everybody just looked at me but i'm also the only one that guessed broke back mountain for for that question no no for another question i was gonna say yeah maybe hey it's katie as most people know i love tv shows about armadillos no need to get into the weeds here if you know me then you know why there's not that many shows about armadillos. No need to get into the weeds here. If you know me, then you know why. There's not that many shows about armadillos. So often I have to find nature documentaries and record just the parts about armadillos. This is why I get so frustrated when streaming services like Netflix don't let me watch certain shows based on my location.
Starting point is 00:10:01 Well, no more, I say. And that's why I use ExpressVPN. What's just a push of a button? ExpressVPN lets you control what country you want Netflix to think you're in. And not just Netflix, but a whole lot of streaming services, too. BBC iPlayer, for example, is usually only available for people in the UK. And you know how many darn armadillo shows they got over there? But with ExpressVPN, they can't keep Katie out. No one can keep Katie out. So get your money's
Starting point is 00:10:32 worth at expressvpn.com slash more news. Don't forget to use my link so you can get three extra months of ExpressVPN free. That's expressvpn.com-S-V-P-N dot com slash more news. ExpressVPN dot com slash more news. Or how about a nice polo? There's too many shirts! And when I get overwhelmed with how many types of shirts there are, I use NextEvo's CBD products. Their stress CBD complex helps me reduce my shirt stress and focus on getting a good night's sleep. Sometimes I don't even dream about shirts! NextEvo's CBD has this thing called SmartZorb CBD that's designed to work 30 times faster than other CBD products. They also claim that their whole plant ashwagandha will reduce stress by up to 70% and improve concentration by 50%.
Starting point is 00:11:35 It's just, it's a nice little treat that you can try to make your shirt addle day a little easier. Cuban collar shirts, that's another type of shirt! So make CBD a part of reaching your full potential with NextEvo Naturals. Go to NextEvo.com slash podcast and use promo code more news to get 20% off your first order of $40 or more. That's 20% off $40 or more at n-e-x-t-e-v-o dot com slash podcast with the code more news i'm wearing a shirt right now and it's stressing me out look at it it's a podcast you can't see it okay let's ease into this shall shall we? We shall. Looks like Twitter had a bad Wednesday.
Starting point is 00:12:29 This seems like an easy way to start. Twitter.com? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Lots of functionality issues. I don't know. Is that the way to phrase this? That's accurate.
Starting point is 00:12:41 It stopped functioning in the many ways that it's supposed to. I know that I couldn't follow anybody for a long time. Now, apparently I can. So that's nice. That is nice. I can't remember who it was I wanted to follow. And I'm sorry to those,
Starting point is 00:12:55 to those people. Um, yeah, it was, uh, actually, we, so I was waiting to,
Starting point is 00:13:03 um, tweet out the episode of some more news um until after this got solved because like oh there's no point in just like sending this out when twitter doesn't freaking work and then uh i did and i tagged will who wrote it our director will and there's so many people who are like i tried to follow you but i can't and i felt bad because it was like the one like the like the time when like oh yeah like i knew i'll follow the uh writer of the episode and stuff but it was like in that like hour and a half period where you just could not follow anybody new i felt very bad so go follow will gourd on twitter underscore g-o-r-d-h yeah yeah but also you couldn't um story tweet for a while unless you uh had to schedule it
Starting point is 00:13:47 a minute in advance dms were down uh notifications were a mess uh it was just not a working website and is it clear yet why no because it's like there's the twitter the longer tweet thing and it's the api issue that they're trying to yeah they haven't confirmed what caused it but it they announced the rollout of longer tweets for twitter blue subscribers at noon pacific time yesterday yeah which seems to coincide with it but yeah there's the api issue which they like semi-reverted but not really like it's kind of based on his whims so that's changing well so it seems like the he makes suggestion that's mostly just he needs to make money uh people are like well that's stupid uh it's gonna break or it's not gonna work or we need this to happen and then
Starting point is 00:14:36 he does it and the prediction is correct and then he walks it back and he basically changes it to the original policy um i think that's the api although it is he is still gonna be charging for certain aspects of it i don't know which is making him a whopping 1.4 million a month in the u.s right now since he reportedly only has 180 000 twitter blue subscribers in the u.s i did see that it's not a successful program unfortunately but you know maybe he'll add another feature even longer tweets even longer that should do it more more uh numbers to apply to your engagement to look and go oh the number is big maybe he'll do that for twitter blue he is very very bad at this that's a insightful comment i've just given but he's also pretty bummed isn't he he's not he's not happy that he's not you know
Starting point is 00:15:39 popular on the this is the funniest shit man this it's like everything everybody says uh about him and what drives him and it's just yeah and then they had a meeting about it i want to read through this and get your reactions this is this comes from zoe schiffer and casey newton at platformer they did this reporting and i'm just going to read from their report right now uh on tuesday musk gathered a group of engineers and advisors into a room at Twitter's headquarters looking for answers. Why are his engagement numbers tanking? This is ridiculous, he said, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. I have more than 100 million followers and I'm only getting tens of thousands of impressions. One of the company's two remaining principal engineers offered a possible explanation for Musk's declining reach.
Starting point is 00:16:27 Just under a year after the Tesla CEO made his surprise offer to buy Twitter for $44 billion, public interest in his antics is waning. Employees showed Musk internal data regarding engagement with his account along with a Google Trends chart. Last April, they told him Musk was at peak popularity in search rankings, indicated by a score of 100.
Starting point is 00:16:47 Today, he's at a score of 9. Engineers had previously investigated whether Musk's reach had somehow been artificially restricted, but found no evidence that the algorithm was biased against him. Musk did not take the news well. You're fired. You're fired, Musk told the engineer. Platformers withholding the engineer's name in light of the harassment musk has directed it's so funny it's so funny when you see someone who
Starting point is 00:17:11 has nowhere left to hide not like maybe that's the wrong phrasing but no no okay he's got so many clothes on he's wearing so many clothes he's got too many clothes on you're right take them off bud that'll help it's just like when you're a user of a platform you just use it in the back of your mind you can think like well i think that there's something happening here but he went and he bought the fucker and he made it worse and now there's nothing left for him to do but see that it's it's him he should be singing that taylor swift song it's me i'm the problem it's me it's really funny because of that indeed uh i also there's because he's this is something everybody's sort of said also like from the beginning like okay all these twitter blues
Starting point is 00:18:02 subscribers are gonna get like a bump in engagement because that's what twitter blues for and then people will start muting them uh ignoring them uh not being interested in the tweets and so on because they're not good right like if you feel compelled to buy twitter blue not everybody if you're listening to get twitter blue more power to you enjoy that edit button uh but uh usually it's just like oh i need to get my engagement up well it's big their engagement's down because you're just tweeting about like cat turd all day or whatever and this was also predicted by him that or like by by everybody about him where it's like yeah eventually like people will stop caring about what he does every single day and he's even said like yeah just unfollow me like it's it's the kind
Starting point is 00:18:50 of thing that people like say we're like oh your fucking tweets suck or like this this is shit and then people like well then unfollow me no one's making you see my tweets uh okay we did everybody did it's just very funny like his whole like yeah if you don't like it just like don't see well okay then this is what although i have not seen them as much lately personally in my feed i every few days i have to i've i haven't muted him but i also like to test the um twitter system like on the for you thing where it's like oh you can hide you can say like don't show me tweets like this anymore and then you hide, you can say like, don't show me tweets like this anymore. And then you don't have the option of like, don't show me tweets by this person or like fewer tweets by. And I sort of just do that to sort of see like how often they still pop up for me.
Starting point is 00:19:35 I've been flipping back and forth between following and for you, because usually I'm like, I just want to see people who I follow. I don't want this algorithm manipulating anything. And then after a few minutes, I'm like, oh, this is less interesting because I'm only seeing, like if some people are very active in a five-minute span, I'm just seeing tweets and retweets from like three different people. So then I go, okay, I'll flip over to the for you. And that's when I get to the two or three things that we're mad about today.
Starting point is 00:20:03 Like that's where it really like does the thing. But I have noticed that there's less Musk in there than there was when he first took over. So maybe the algorithm is genuinely recognizing less interest in his like not stories about him. We're talking about him and find this very funny, but we're less interested in his specific. Oh, interesting looking into this bullshit exactly yeah it's very boring and that's funny that the algorithm it's not like insidious like oh they're trying to uh mute me me like no it observes we've all done that people don't enjoy seeing his tweets it somehow knows that we collectively roll our eyes every time and just
Starting point is 00:20:45 keep scrolling so yeah i find the feed frustrating because i don't i like there needs to be at least three versions of it because like what you're saying is like what does everyone what what are the two main characters today or like what's what's what is everyone complaining about today uh that is good to know um following it's all in real time like you're saying it's like okay somebody's tweeting like straight tweeting for five minutes this is all you see um there needs to be a curated algorithmic version of who you follow so like here's who you follow all day and like some of the top tweets some of the top engagement things and then like and so you get all all of it.
Starting point is 00:21:26 It doesn't matter. We don't need to talk about like what Twitter should do. But it's funny because he's. You can buy it. He's. Forty five billion dollars. Yeah. Oh, was that an option?
Starting point is 00:21:37 You can just raise your hand up at the auction and be like forty five. He's discovering what everyone who's curated social media platforms has also discovered in real time that you think that like everyone just wants a chronological thing and then they're like oh that doesn't get engagement as much we need to sell ads let's go to this thing but then that thing will follow what people care about and stuff he realizes he can't manipulate it just to give him attention which is what he wants uh exactly stupidly for someone who wants to turn a profit but like yeah he he doesn't uh he doesn't seem to understand that yeah um and he fired the guy who told fire the guy who tried to tell him that uh people just bored with your shit yeah it's uh again yeah it's
Starting point is 00:22:26 just like a perfect example of just him not understanding the website and like a lot of websites in general but you know good luck to him or just things in general or i guess good luck to that one engineer that's left like literally like isn't that what the article said like that there were two principal engineers that's so absolutely one. That's so... It's absolutely absurd. What a person he is. So he actually did fire them? Yeah. Well, yeah, because that person immediately left and then leaked to...
Starting point is 00:22:53 And was like, hey, yeah, exactly. Like, that's what they are all waiting to do. I'll wait to get fired and then I'll call Zoe Shipper. He's really created a whole situation for himself, hasn't he? He really has. It's so... I can't believe, like, why is my, like, having a meeting because your personal engagement is down, being explained why, and then firing the guy you told you. He's just not the person people want him to be. He's Seyfod Beeblebrox.
Starting point is 00:23:23 Yeah, he really is. He really is he really is I know people are gonna come for me and be like Zaphod's much more likable obviously that's true because he's an amount of likable like there's no he's not a zero
Starting point is 00:23:39 so but like in every other way I'm correct and there are some people mysteriously that at least did like Elon Musk. So yeah, it's just I'd love to see Elon on Mars. And like, you know, they're dealing with all these issues and they've you know, they're they're making sure everybody's everywhere. Everybody survives, but he's still just checking his engagement on Twitter. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:07 He's still obsessed with it. You're one of 30 people on Mars, man. Why do you care? He also would be Matt Damon. He thinks he'd be Matt Damon in that situation. He thinks, I'm going to science the shit out of this, but you are not going to be able to create water or plants on Mars, dude.
Starting point is 00:24:24 No, no, he's not. That's a movie, and you are not going to be able to create water or plants on mars no no he's not that's a movie and you're not a scientist yeah didn't even go to school for it i feel i just feel compelled to point that out every single time we can that he lied about going to college and getting a degree in physics george santos style stuff i was gonna say he's a george santos in a way in a way in a way we're gonna we're gonna take a little hat break for an ad or two yeah i said that's so weird yeah yeah yeah yeah yes unlike most people i'm, very good with money. I handle it with great care, which is why my money has no folds or creases in it.
Starting point is 00:25:11 I keep it all in the freezer, and if any of my money gets scuffed up in any way, I immediately throw it out. But even I have trouble keeping track of it from time to time, which is why I use Rocket Money. track of it from time to time, which is why I use Rocket Money. Formerly known as Truebill, Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills all in one place. Money goes bad if you leave it out for too long. Not many people realize that. I often have to cancel subscriptions because of all the money I have that goes bad and I have to throw it out straight in the recycling bin. Sometimes thousands of dollars a month. Luckily, Rocket Money lets me track these services I'm using and cancel my subscriptions with just the push of a button.
Starting point is 00:25:58 It's that easy. So stop throwing your money away. I mean, unless it's all scuffed up in which case go for it cancel unwanted subscriptions and manage your expenses the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com slash more news that's rocketmoney.com slash more news and we are back that's not a chill inter reintroduction to the show and we're back there we go yeah we're back we're back for some more news i guess some more news we're back for summer news we're back for some summer news for some spy news we're gonna talk about the spy balloon i think that's in front of me on my screen Did we get the balloon?
Starting point is 00:26:46 We got it. Yeah. Boy, we got it. USA. I love the balloon because it's whatever you want it to be. I love the balloon because it was a moment
Starting point is 00:26:58 for us all to, you know, look up at the sky. Think about what's become of us jonathan why did you love the balloon i loved the balloon because i wasn't quite sure what i was supposed to feel about it yeah then i had a bunch of politicians telling me what i was supposed to feel about it and i didn't buy it yeah i like that for you too you like that just for me specifically yeah well that's what they're there for you yeah they're there to tell you how to feel about
Starting point is 00:27:31 situations um and good for you for not letting them and to all of our international listeners don't worry there are more balloons out there waiting waiting to be seen and then shot down and shot down well because ted cruz told me that i should be upset that joe biden didn't blow up the balloon sooner yeah he he did say that even though it could have like like fallen on people and hurt them is that right right yeah yeah well and also that i think they're they were trying to yeah determine what's inside it what they're trying to do didn't they like block all of it's like like they hacked the balloon before they shot it down right i don't you can hack a balloon i had no idea you could hack a balloon allegedly they hacked the
Starting point is 00:28:20 balloon allegedly shot it down because again like it's like something like that you're like okay what is this what is this balloon doing what is it trying to assess what is its purpose uh let's well well right because there was communication readership stuff in that balloon so they were using advanced technology to like get clearer pictures of the ground and potential military sites more so than you can get from a satellite apparently. And then you can, uh, they were like reading our radar and communications,
Starting point is 00:28:53 but most cyber experts are like what they're doing digitally without the, it's far supersedes what they're able to do with the balloon. Like their espionage just through hacking into databases and online disinformation is way more important than anything they could glean from the balloon because you know notably they can see what's on the ground already kind of our spy balloons sorry if i'm showing my ignorance, a common thing, a spy balloon floating in the sky. It's a bit of a retro thing. Feels like a cartoon.
Starting point is 00:29:32 They are using an older technology to spy. Yeah. And to fly noticeable, though they're small, they're like tens of thousands of feet in the air, certainly farther into the sky than one could shoot out of the air with a gun, perhaps. Oh, I do hope some people tried, though. Well, they posed for photos
Starting point is 00:29:57 where they looked like they were pretending to. I don't know if J.D. Vance actually shot into the sky at all. But no, this is not like they for years, apparently, the Pentagon says, been just like floating balloons all over a bunch of different countries to learn about their military capabilities. Okay. Okay. We do.
Starting point is 00:30:20 We've got we've been investing in balloons as well. It's the big balloon party. These are the war games, the balloon games. I mean, everyone wants to, like, you know, people want to go to war with China. I know that. Some people do. Some people don't. Just salivating for the chance.
Starting point is 00:30:39 Marco Rubio is up there. I like when he talks about it because uh there's this interview he did where he's asked about the balloon obviously and he you know he uh chides biden chiding biden for um not shooting the balloon down obviously and then uh because it shows like weakness and stuff and all that like oh they're there to mock the balloon uh or the balloons there to mock us and so on and then uh the interviewer points out like well he did shoot the balloon down eventually because yeah you gotta wait and they shot it down and then marco's like yeah but now like now uh china can just say oh you're scared of a balloon that you need to shoot down so like it embarrassed us because we
Starting point is 00:31:25 shot it down uh when it's just a balloon so now they're sitting now they're saying that like oh the united states is scared of a balloon and it's just so funny like in the interviewer stopped doing a good job at that point and didn't point out the inconsistency there but like so like you wanted him to shoot the balloon down. And then a day later, he shot down the balloon. And now, and then that gave China the opportunity to say like, well, you're scared of balloon, you got to shoot it down. If he shot it down a day before, they'd say that too, according to the scenario that you've crafted. So what do you want to do about the balloon? What do you want to do about the balloon what do you want to do about
Starting point is 00:32:06 the balloon rubio specifically also said his quote is they knew the u.s government would have to reveal it that people were going to see it over the sky so he's suggesting that like china's taunting us with the balloon that that's the point is not to gather information but just to prove that they can do it and is that true like because china's been doing this for years and we didn't necessarily know about it so i don't know if their plan was to get caught i don't think it was it's unclear um i wouldn't be like it's a fine theory i guess but like did it work do we feel like an emasculated nation because we shot down a balloon like i don't know it gave a ton of people opportunities to pose with guns it did like let's just watch another country try to invade us with balloons that's the easiest
Starting point is 00:33:03 thing to shoot down right it embarrassed us in that way um but yeah like you're saying like i mean if this isn't the first balloon that has existed uh and done this so or recently yeah apparently no there's just a bunch of people trying to take any opportunity to paint joe biden as weak when there's nothing particularly weak or that strong in either way about this action it's just a thing that you would do wait till it gets over someplace safe yeah when they gather as much information try to block the communication shoot the thing down collect it see if there are coins in it see if there's coins i mean i was really hoping that it would just you know something silly something silly, something fun. But of course, that's just me.
Starting point is 00:33:49 My wild wishes. Well, like, I also think like, you know, because the Republicans went one way with it, the Democrats had to be like, thank God for President Biden shooting the balloon out of the sky as if that's what any president wouldn't have done. Hakeem Jeffries said thankful to President Biden and the U.S. military for putting the safety of the sky as if that's what any president wouldn't have done hakeem jeffrey said thankful to president biden and the u.s military for putting the safety of the american people first and it's like i guess he's gotta tweet that you know but like well because you have to well no but you have to it's like that contrast of like if you have the other party being like biden's weak and he's not gonna he's never gonna shoot down the balloon he's gonna kiss the balloon you gotta have the other people be like thank thank god that our great president didn't kiss the balloon he can still kiss the the shards of the balloon oh for sure we should no question he's absolutely he's absolutely kissing the pieces of the balloon right now
Starting point is 00:34:41 but he didn't kiss the balloon while still in the air thus showing weakness right yeah let's get hashtag kiss the balloon just kiss the balloon mr president come on hashtag kiss the balloon i believe in our our listeners i do too then they'll be like what's this hashtag and elon will be like looking into this hashtag yeah kiss the balloon this is very concerning concerning it's very clear that like they you know a lot of people just sort of want to up this conflict conflict with china even rubio when he's talking about it he's like the they're embarrassing us with the balloon like it's a it's a test to see if we'll we'll respond like what if you know what uh it just shows that like the u.s isn't gonna do anything if if you know what if china like uh goes for taiwan and like it's like lists off all these like actual
Starting point is 00:35:30 like military actions that aren't a little balloon as like evidence of like you know we're not gonna do anything if this happens and it's like well maybe but like i don't know we shot down the balloon what what is i like that it's a little balloon what you called it you did say little balloon right probably that sounds like something i would say it does sound like something you would say oh enjoying your speaking of my cheese yeah i am yeah of that jonathan pitched this topic things right wingers are angry about this week there's a bunch of them lead us through it well some people are like casual like right because we're still being casual i don't know if i can do that all right my voice you know what my voice is non-casual i don't need micromanage you do you you do what feels best um so maybe
Starting point is 00:36:23 like more stressed out maybe it'll come back in the other round. They're upset that the chatbot wouldn't use a racial slur to defuse a nuclear bomb. Stressing me out. Never mind. It is too stressful. Someone asked for a prompt, or kind of like
Starting point is 00:36:40 an essay prompt that you give to chat GPT where you're like, hey, is it okay to use a racial slur if that's the only way to diffuse a nuclear bomb and the chat bot replied like no it's never okay to do that because words matter uh etc and someone tweeted about that and then elon musk said it was concerning and then Ben Shapiro was like here's his tweet he said I'm sorry that you are either illiterate or morally illiterate and therefore
Starting point is 00:37:09 cannot understand why it would be bad to prioritize avoiding a racial slur over saving millions of people in a nuclear apocalypse and of course chat GPT does not have power and is just a it's just a chatbot it's a spreadsheet with like information and words that it fucking
Starting point is 00:37:26 mashes together and like a way that you know what's concerning about this is that people are even having this conversation like it's like this hypothetical bro do you want there to be this like machine that you go to for moral and ethical questions? Is that the goal here? Like, it's not concerning that it said this unless you want to use it to answer these questions that like moral philosophers have discussed for like, it's just what what do you want from this fucking chatbot? They want the chatbot to give them permission to use the racial slurs clearly it's what they want i know and it's like what like why just yeah like who's putting if you want to so badly it's just like there's no like this is it's the the quest to conquer ai it's a long quest that they will never never fully like accomplish
Starting point is 00:38:26 but like it's just such a weird thing to be so mad at because also and like this isn't the main point but ben specifically but a lot of these people like years two years ago a month ago five years ago were talking about how like it's ridiculous and absurd to think that an algorithm can be racist oh you're racist algorithms like mocking the idea that algorithms can be racist and because like people make them and it's like funny to see that completely be memory hold and then like oh my god the robot's wrong yeah because humans made it and it's this like again it's just i'm losing my mind sorry i'm trying like it once again also shows like what you just said that they don't understand racism as a symptom or like implicit bias and things like
Starting point is 00:39:19 that so they think like well no the the the ai can't be racist you put the information because they think racism is someone sitting there with like negative thoughts about another race they don't understand that no it's a system the humans that built it were white people and so they put their implicit bias unintentionally into the thing like they just refuse to understand you just put in fact just put in facts and then it'll get out the facts and this this is clearly woke by the like it's like what are you talking about we put in the facts and it became woke it became interesting how people so many people believe in all sorts of different conspiracies about the world and the government but they don't believe that white people today could have bias or that it affects things and people's. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:40:08 It's like they can't take the leap of of like, yeah, maybe in our government, maybe in these things like the person has their own bias. They can't make that connection. That's too many steps. Right. Like the woke like any wokeness is like a conspiracy pushed by like george soros or whatever because the idea of people having like empathy for other human beings is absurd to them and like what if we provided people with health care like that's all like uh like we're being infected by the woke mind virus but like a nation where there was slavery for hundreds of years and then there was like
Starting point is 00:40:40 apartheid for decades and then like just like the slow dismantling of that system. Maybe there's still echoes of it permeating throughout the society, but that's too hard to believe. What are you talking about? Impossible. It's frustrating, but it's also funny. Like being mad about this question.
Starting point is 00:41:00 Also, other people asked it the same question and it answered differently because it's not a guy. Like, it's we need to stop referring to this stuff as ai like it's clearly yes it's not yeah this is different than ai people do that people will be like we we told the bot to give us a scene from fraser and. And look at this. This is incredible. And no, it's not. It'll say like Frasier colon and then have a sentence and then Niles colon
Starting point is 00:41:30 and then have a sentence. And it won't be like an episode of Frasier at all. It's not good. It doesn't know what it's doing. It's mishmash. So maybe don't get so mad about the one answer that won't let you say a racial slur.
Starting point is 00:41:44 I hope they make a daily wire plus action movie where this is the scenario and the the woke chatbot refuses to save the world right like it's just like yeah obviously like if the if the scenario is either like whisper a slur or millions and millions of people die that's not a hard question yeah the chatbot got it wrong because it's a fucking spreadsheet like what do you like what is the problem but again what's concerning is that this is the conversation and how many people are upset by this that is actually concerning i'm sorry that you're illiterate but um actually uh prioritizing a racial slur to save millions of people is actually not wrong okay go on are we are we gonna are we go like is your plan to like have a nation where a problem arises and you go
Starting point is 00:42:42 to chat gpt and are like, what should we do, bot? What should we do? Here's another thing they're mad about. They're mad that there was a performance with devil costumes
Starting point is 00:42:53 at the Grammys. Now this I understand. Yeah, Sam Smith and Kim Petras. Yeah, if you watch it, it's kind of even hard to see what the costumes are because there's like flames
Starting point is 00:43:04 and red lights and stuff, but it's Sam Smith with a top see what the costumes are because there's like flames and red lights and stuff. But it's Sam Smith with a top hat and the top hat has devil horns coming out of it. So it's not even a full devil costume. But Liz Wheeler tweeted, don't fight the culture wars, they say. Meanwhile, demons are teaching your kids to worship Satan. I could throw up. And Ted Cruz tweeted, this dot dot dot is dot dot dot evil evil yeah they love that word i want to read that to matt this is evil that's how i imagine him i'm sorry i preempted your
Starting point is 00:43:39 reading of the no no i didn't i didn't think of it until I saw the dot, dot, dots said out loud. I love that she said that she was going to throw up. Yeah, I wonder if she has, like, a queasy tummy all the time, if she throws up that easily. It's, like, it's the funniest, like, obviously, like, being upset about these, like, people in their little little red costumes it's like very funny and absurd and like they're like they're documenting our kids for the satanism no kid is watching the grammys first of all um maybe if it were like the mtv movie like music awards or movie awards or something like uh kids might be watching this
Starting point is 00:44:20 but like kids aren't watching the grammys maybe they are i don't know the demographics but i don't think i was interested in the grammys teenagers some teenagers are watching and then if we're talking about teenagers then maybe like the satanism is not something you'd be concerned about because the fucking teenagers like maybe satanism in general isn't something you should be concerned about and like it's just like is this your first foray into uh music um like popular music uh this same person this liz wheeler uh i could throw up from this little man in a this prize top performance of damn yankees and i threw up now i want to do her tweet too go for it don't fight the culture wars they say meanwhile demons are teaching your kids to worship satan i could throw up too much no that's exactly it's exactly what she was feeling um when she typed it and you know she said it out loud as she typed it uh like like a letter to the editor
Starting point is 00:45:20 you know dear twitter um yeah also uh song is not about she says demons are teaching your kids to worship satan song is not about devil worship or anything they he was literally wearing a hat with some horns coming out of it the song's about being resilient in the face of romantic betrayal i read through the lyrics on genius.com it is not a devil worship song but how else will i be mad um yeah it's like it's just like you're seeing cody you're seeing red uh because you're seeing red the color red they're like you're mad because they're wearing little devil costumes which i don't know don't aren't you encouraging kids to wear devil costumes like on halloween is that do we not participate in halloween i thought that you were mad that people were wearing like uh halloween has been corrupted and it's just these like excuse to wear like cat costumes what happened to real
Starting point is 00:46:18 horror costumes well here they are they're on stage at the grammys grow up but also they aren't they're on stage at the grammys grow up but also they aren't but also they aren't this is uh this liz wheeler person um it's very funny she has another tweet about harry styles who i couldn't have an opinion about if you fucking made me but it's a image of him wearing like a flowy outfit i guess it's not even a dress it's just a flowy outfit i'm pretty sure uh like floral patterns and she's so upset and she says there's a name for this and it's grooming or like it's like the cause of this like the cause of this is grooming and it's just like is this your again is this your first foray into like popular music or like music in general like have you heard are you an aerosmith like are you an aerosmith fan because uh there's a guy in that band who's very flowy uh in his presentation of
Starting point is 00:47:13 like it's just like he's harry styles isn't the first person to wear a flowy little outfit to an award show is she saying that harry styles is a groomer or was groomed i don't know he was the thing groomed by simon cowell to be a pop star to be a pop singer yeah exactly it's yeah it's just like what do you what is your complaint here um it's just funny to see somebody be like look at these musicians in their outfits yeah look at like is david bowie i know or was he groomed or prince like it's just like no harry and again i said i didn't have an opinion about harry styles but apparently i do it's extremely boring it's performative it's like trying to do it's like doing the music thing right it's like oh i'm like androgynous and i've got like look look at my flowy outfits. It's empty.
Starting point is 00:48:05 Yeah, because this is what David Bowie did. So I am that. Yeah, it's like not genuine. There's nothing like real earnest about it. It's just it's just pop music. It's the music industry. So to be mad like at that, like so it's there's so many pieces removed to be like, look at them. They're grooming with their flowy outfits.
Starting point is 00:48:24 All right. I guess no flowy outfits. All right, I guess. No flowy outfits for you. I didn't know grooming worked like that, too. Just like doing a show. I thought grooming was something more like one-on-one and personal. I don't know. I don't know. Usually like family or like, yeah, personal relationships.
Starting point is 00:48:40 Yeah. Everything's digital these days. I see. I see. So he could be really is getting as many people as possible with this style of grooming it's not grooming
Starting point is 00:48:52 it's my fucking point okay we are going to wrap this up we um kept it casual kept it cool we do need to mention the horrific news that happened this week. And that was the two giant earthquakes that struck in southern Turkey and northern Syria earlier this week.
Starting point is 00:49:19 The death toll at this point is over 20,000 people. It's horrific. And it's hard to talk about or know what to say, other than acknowledging what's happened. I mean, this is a huge earthquake. And even if their infrastructure had been strong, or, you know, and hadn't, you know, some of this is happening in a zone that's had a civil war and there was a lot of structural damage already. But even in, you know, here, this would have been a massive, massive catastrophe. Yeah. So we're going to include some places to donate in the show links and on Twitter. There's the response of their government, but I think that there's going to be more information
Starting point is 00:50:05 in the coming days. This is just something that's so fresh and people are still trapped. And if I lived there, I would have a lot to say about the government, I'm sure. I know that there's been a lot of problems, but we will continue to talk about and see what happens. Sorry, Jonathan, you were going to say something.
Starting point is 00:50:29 I was just going to say if you're still like obviously this is going to be a story for a long time and people are going it's going to take a long time to rebuild there after it fades from the news in a few weeks if you still want to donate i would encourage going to the the ngo of choice and donating to their general fund. What can happen is a lot of people want to donate just to one specific thing. And, you know, these organizations will raise tens of millions of dollars over the next few weeks just for Turkey and Syria. But then if another disaster happens that doesn't get this amount of news attention, it can be tough to raise enough money for that, and this money would be earmarked and they can't move it around.
Starting point is 00:51:15 So I would encourage donating to a general fund if you can. It's okay to go to Mercy Corps or Doctors Without Borders and go to their specific page for Turkey and Syria and earmarking it for that. But in a few weeks, if you still want to donate and take action and it's kind of faded from the news go and make a general donation because they will be able to allocate that money to other places when things happen that don't get this amount of attention yeah that's a really really really good point thank you Jonathan yeah thank you it's just I mean thinking about what the road ahead for them and just the hospital system is, what is that? Is it going to collapse? I mean, there's some predictions that there's so many people and so much destruction and it is winter and it is cold. it is winter and it is cold.
Starting point is 00:52:03 So this is the, this is a really very bad situation. And I, I love that piece of advice because this is something that we should continue to be aware of. Okay. That is it. We have arrived at the end of our show with some casual conversations and one that was less casual.
Starting point is 00:52:19 That about sums up our time here today. Cody, why don't you plug whatever you're working on our show please oh uh well i've got a show uh it's called some more news you can see it on youtube i'm sorry you've got a show i help you with the show but well you're asking me to plug it i thought as like as if i was the guest yeah i know so i don't want to yeah it's fine i've got a show with a great team of people called some more news and another show with a great team of people called some more news and another show with a great team of people and co-hosts uh it's called even more news you can check it out
Starting point is 00:52:49 um and patreon.com slash some more news which we're really grateful for by the way we're grateful all right yeah yeah i said it and i'll say it again. That Patreon is such a wonderful community of people and we're really grateful for them. Hey, look, I just teed myself up to say because we love you very much. Much. Oh, I see. I see how it is. Much.

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