The Daily Zeitgeist - Biggest Election Story Yet To Come? Death To Death Penalty 09.26.24

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

In episode 1749, Jack and Miles are joined by author of I'm Starting To Worry About This Black Box of Doom and co-host of Bigfeets, Jason Pargin, to discuss… Trump’s First Assassination Attempt A Carnival of Errors, Death Penalty Used To Be A Thing The Democrats Were Against..., James Cameron Joins AI Company’s Board Of Directors... Inspires Countless Terminator Memes and more! Harris won't say whether she still wants to end death penalty Race and the Death Penalty Marcellus Williams executed in Missouri amid strong innocence claims: 'It is murder' James Cameron Joins AI Company’s Board Of Directors... Inspires Countless Terminator Memes Artists Land a Win in Class Action Lawsuit Against A.I. Companies Stability AI’s Emad Mostaque is out following an investor mutiny and staff exodus that left the one-time tech darling in turmoil AI startup Stability lays off 10% of staff after controversial CEO’s exit: Read the full memo AI’s Trust Problem LISTEN: Nothing But Jazz Loops by Pigeon DustSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My kids said a Alexa alert yesterday, like right when we were about to start recording, I suddenly hear the Alexa full blast in the kitchen, just being like, alert, reminder, you are getting a dog. You are getting a dog. They're trying to to trick me into thinking I had set an alert to. Just some subtle gaslighting. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, God, Dad, what's that? What is that? I was like impressed. Did they just watch Inception? Yeah, right. Alert, you are getting a dog right now. Hey, y'all, Nimmini here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast now. Hip Hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

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America's shared consciousness and it is Thursday September 26th 20 24 Mm-hmm. What's going on Miles? Hey, man, it's National Compliance Officer Day, it's National Situational Awareness Day, it's National Dumpl- it's National Dumplin' Day, it's National Pancake Day, it's National Shamu the Whale Day, and also National Johnny Appleseed Day. Mmm, Johnny Appleseed. We had to sing that every day before lunch.

In my Lutheran school. You had what? We had to sing Johnny Appleseed. There was a Johnny Appleseed Christian song that we would have to sing before we would go to the cafeteria for lunch. It was really stupid. It was always this grace song that we'd sing. Make sure that you were thanking Jesus for your apples. No, it was about the Lord is good to me and so I thank the Lord for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the apple seed. The Lord is good to me. so I thank the Lord for giving me the things I need the sun and the rain and the apple

Seed the Lord is good to me. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let's eat Taco Bell Did you have Taco Bell? Uh, we got it Occasionally, but yeah, that was like when like something went down with the cafeteria like look, yo We got wiener schnitzel and Taco Bell. So, you know my seventh grade cafeteria had uh the bean burritos and they were Consistently. Yeah. Yeah, like pretty regularly They also had ice ease. It was like it was in that moment where like nobody knew what nutrition was And they're like, yeah kids like it. Yeah. Yeah, they like frozen sugar

Yeah, Dayton, Ohio shout out to Centerville Public Schools because they were they were serving us Taco Bell burritos and then Lexington Public School District in Kentucky. We had Chick-fil-A, so shout out. Had them all. You've had them all. All right. My name's Jack O'Brien, AKA Banjo Eric, Gary Slime.

Banjo Eric, Gary Slime, ban Joe Eric had a dog, Bamba Lamba Gary sitting on a log, Bamba Lamba. Whoa. That one courtesy of Halcyon Salad on the Discord referring to our two new acronym, Alter Egos, my acronym, Ban Joe Eric, Miles, Gary Slime. I feel like that's accurate that they would be, I added the last part that Banjo Eric would be walking around with a dog and Gary slime will be sitting on a log. They're like kinda, you know, they look, they, those names are giving ride the rails a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. But yeah, I don't know. I could get behind this. Like, I feel like that's a true, a proud tradition unlike any others in fiction is like people having acronym names.

Right. Doesn't that happen in like one of the Harry Potter books? No idea. Couldn't tell you. I think like he's like going by a different alter ego name or like an AKA. And then like when you unscramble the letters, it's like, wait a second. Wait, it's that guy the whole time. It's the bad guy.

It's Banjo Eric. It was Banjo Eric all along. The hints. I do love that tweet where people are like, all right, we're ready to do 9-11 tomorrow. But one last thing, the hints. The hints. Yes. Anyways, the anagrams courtesy of Manish, the black Betty Ramalam, AKA

courtesy of Halcyon salad, and I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my cohost, Mr. Miles Gray. It's Miles Gray, AKA. Exit thousand dollars. Shut the fuck up. Oh, theyit $1000? Shut the fuck up. Oh, they eatin' pets now? Shut the fuck up.

Immigrants on the move? Shut the fuck up. You think we're pigeons on stools? Shut the fuck up. Wanna keep dog whistlin'? Shut the fuck up. Wanna cabinet position? Shut the fuck up.

Soon as I'm VP? Shut the fuck up. The black bags are free. Shut the fuck up. Okay, shout out to Halcyon Salad for referencing a very fantastic Jada Kiss track, Knock Yourself Out, produced by the Neptunes. For those who don't know, you know,

and for those that do, shout out to you. Yeah, wonderful. Halcyon Salad doing the exact-a today. Backing track. Halcyon Salad with the exact-a box today. I think I had to do the backing track or else I had to give people the reference. Otherwise it would just been like a lot of screaming and shut the fuck up. Why is Miles so mad at me?

Why is he whispering? To himself. Miles, we're thrilled to be joined in our third seat today by the best-selling author of books like John Dies at the End, Zoe Punches the Future and the Dick, and the new Stand Alone. I'm starting to worry about this black box of Doom available now. That shit just dropped yesterday.

Fresh. It's also one of the hosts of the podcast, Big Feets, which if I'm reading this New Yorker profile correctly, is the only Mountain Monsters podcast officially endorsed by Big Feet. He's my former coworker at Cracked and co-creator of the Cracked podcast. Welcome back to the show. It's Jason Pargin. Jason.

Congratulations again on getting renewed for season 357. I saw the headline in Variety. Yeah. Immediately texted Jack and he was like, who is this? Please, you don't text each other. If you are like, no, we only talk as contact Jason. Yeah. Say it for the podcast.

I'm not doing this for free. I'm not just, I'm not just giving this out. I'm not doing this for free. Thank you for the Frank. Thank you for the kind words. Yeah. It's a, it's every week it's we're on, we're on a knife's edge every Friday. 357. Yeah. No, he, he's every week it's wrong. We're on a knife's edge every Friday. 357.

Yeah. No, eat our shit. The Simpsons. That's the phrase right? Eat our shit. No, eat our, eat our shorts. Eat my shit. Bart Simpson.

Jason, how are you doing? Hey, I, I imagine. Especially because you told me right before we started recording, that the day is leading up to and immediately after a book launch, pretty exhausting. Yeah, because you've got to do a lot of the publicity stuff yourself because you can't hire somebody to do the interviews for you or to do TikTok videos for you unless I can find somebody who looks and sounds exactly like me. But if that guy existed, I can think of other uses for him, probably.

So it's not a real job, in my opinion. It's a very stupid job, but also extremely exhausting. Because if you've ever talked about yourself or something you made over and over and over again, hundreds and hundreds of times, and you're trying to make sure that you don't just start lying at some point or making things up or contradicting yourself or, uh, because I'm not, I'm not so famous that if I said something that it would like offhand that a Reddit AMA that it would get pulled out and become a headline.

Then if I said something stupid enough, it could go viral. I get, I'm in that area where it could become, I could become a main character of the day if I went far enough off the rails and you know, the Jack you've interacted with me for a very long time. Sometimes I just say stuff that isn't true because I think it's funny, but I say it in a very serious way. That's gotten me in trouble many times in my life, and it's inevitable that that's going to lead to my downfall. So it's like, I just have to get through this week because once the book's out there, it's out there. They can't stop it. But

I think we did that. I don't think I said anything too controversial, but, uh, you know, we're coming through the Reddit AMA looking for something that could end you. And so far no luck, but yeah, I mean, we all aspire to be famous enough that we, you know, just saying the wrong thing can make you, that make you the, put you in the spotlight. Pull quote worthy. By the way, your answer is suspiciously similar to the answer of somebody who has a double like doing this podcast.

I got, that would be great. Huh? But not me. Couldn't be me. And if I did find someone, it wouldn't be for stuff like this anyway. Was it, was it? Was it Andrew W.K.? There's a conspiracy theory that they replaced him with a different dude halfway through

his career. Is anybody familiar with that? No. Because I am internet brained, I thought that was true. I thought there were two Andrew W.K.'s. It may absolutely be true. I don't know. I was never able to get to the bottom of it, but yeah.

Wait, what, what do they say is the moment that the WK switched over? You know, is there a thing where they're like, look at him in this album. Now look at him in this album. It's not the same guy or anything like that. Yeah. I mean, so there's the online equivalent of that with drill, right? Everybody thinks drill got replaced by like a bot at some point recently. I'm trying to find the Andrew WK story.

But because the guy, the, the original guy is very, was always very cryptic about the answers he gave. And they asked him, he would always be like, well, Andrew WK, WK was never a person. It was always a multimedia experiment. The explanation of exploration of a persona, blah, blah, blah. And so they kind of fed into it, but I actually never found the answer of. Yeah. I can't find it. I don't know why I thought that was true. I've met him a few times. Like when I worked at Playboy, we made a video that we created

a fake third political party for him called the Party Party that, like, I helped make him like we created a website and stuff. So like we texted for a little bit that I mean, he's very real. And that guy also would use like a Rite Aid plastic bag is like his briefcase. Like he'd come to the offices and he's like, let me like have this like plastic shopping bag and like his phone in it and keys and like a notebook. And I was always like, this guy is very interesting, but yeah, I never heard

that he had been swapped out ever, but now I'm gonna have to look into that. Listeners, there's a rabbit hole. You can follow down. There used to be a website dedicated entirely to this, to track, you know, all the evidence back when websites existed. I maybe there's an app now or a YouTube video that does the same thing, but it was a, it was a thing at one time. Yeah.

And the WK stands for who knows, you know, could be true. We can't, can't be confirmed or denied at this point. Jason, we are going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell the listeners a couple of things we're talking about. We're going to talk about new details, the bipartisan report on the first assassination attempt that happened on July 13th, a mere, that's two months ago?

A little over two months ago? That seems like a lifetime ago. They released the bipartisan report and the only suspicious thing is just like the secret service like bad at their job, which that seemed to be the read from the start. Yeah. It's like a carnival of errors, I think is what the report was titled. We're going to talk about the death penalty, a thing that Democrats used to be against for very good reasons, no longer on the party platform for some reason. So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about the price of eggs. We might even talk about James Cameron joining an AI company's board of directors, which, you know, he's like, actually, guys, nothing to fear here.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So remember miles Dyson. No, all right. All that plenty more. But first Jason, we like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history? Uh, Hawk to a podcast reel. Right.

So I had seen a whole bunch of memes on Twitter where people were Photoshopping the Hawk to a girl onto a set, discussing some extremely academic subject in a podcast. And I thought, oh, okay, they're, they're calling her dumb, whatever. And then saw a headline that the Hawk to a podcast called talk to a, uh, uh, it was the number, the number four podcast in the United States. It's like, Oh, hold on. So the podcast part is real.

It's just that the memes you're making are fake. And if so, what's the show about? So I had to search in, uh, because I will admit, I cannot tell the difference between things people are just joking about and things that actually happened, but, uh, yeah, apparently successful podcast on, I guess, Jake Paul's network. And, um, you've probably covered all this. I was out of the loop. Yeah.

No, I mean, we've covered it in the sense that we were, you know, really, we were in a bidding war with Jake Paul, trying to bring this podcast onto our network, I think we did say like the week before it was announced that she had a podcast, we were like, man, someone needs to give her a podcast. Yeah, and there it is. Because she does seem to be a delight. I know, Jason, you were seeing memes of it, like the fake podcast, but then people were doing like memes or comedy videos about the real talk to a thing. It was like, it was like all these

bros getting together, like watching it on a big screen and be like, yes, every single quip or funny line. I was like, okay, so now people are leaning ironically into it and be like, it's the fucking sickest show. I have not seen it. When I saw that this was your search history, I assumed that they were trying to book you onto the Hawk Tooth Podcast, Talk Tooth to talk about your new book. Is this a prank?

She's a fan of novels and literature. Obviously, yeah. Makes sense. Is the story that there was one point where they said that Donald Trump canceled his appearance on the Hawk Toa podcast. Was that real or was that like a fake story? I think it was right immediately after the second assassination attempt in Florida, one of the headlines that came off of that in the days immediately

after were Trump cancels appearance on talk to a, if you put a gun to my head, I could not tell you whether or not that was true or false. The express tribune seems to be. Oh, the Express Tribune. The Express Tribune. Well, yeah, then of course. I mean, that seems weird. I mean, that's like a weird, I mean, like publicly she, she, she wasn't really

speaking like fondly of Trump. So I don't know where that would have happened. But that was just like a fun thing for a little while for people to do is have Trump on your podcast, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yvonne had him on and just told him about cocaine. So, yeah, I don't know.

And this Huck too. Yeah. That just seems like such a terrible pairing. Like the Huck to a girl and Donald Trump and whatever, like letting him just talk freely in that context, I feel like would lead to, I don't know what it would have lead to, led to, but maybe it would help him. Who knows? Uh, I'm going to say right now, again, I don't know what it would have lead to, but maybe it would help them. Who knows? Uh, I'm going to say right now, again, I don't know if you discussed it when it

came up, his appearance on that Theo Von podcast, unironically fascinating because he'll start talking about doing cocaine and Donald Trump starts asking him a bunch of probing questions and his first time I'd seen him be like, honestly interested in someone else and their experiences. Yeah. And he was just being, he wasn't playing the character of Donald Trump that he's been playing on TV for the last whatever, 50 years, and just asking, because he's genuinely, because Trump famously does not drink or doesn't do drugs, I guess.

And it was just famously like fascinated by like, what's it like? And so, you know, so it's like, what are you, and there's the, like, well, yeah, you know, homie, uh, yeah. And, uh, it's be an owl out there, man. Be on your own street, my front porch. Like a goddamn street, my man. So heartbreaking for Donald Trump Jr. Because you could have asked your own child about, okay.

You know what I mean? And said, you're really interested in Theo Vonn's recap of doing dodgy blows. Dad, I'm fucking flying out here. I'm right here, dad. You can fucking ask me about being an owl or a street lamp. Or maybe he's like, I've been hearing about this cocaine a lot lately. Should I do it? Not anyone close to me.

If your dad did it, would you think he was cool? What? No, man. Yeah, that is one of the great things that podcasting has brought us is that conversation, unfortunately. Jason, what is something you think is overrated? I think all of the panic about like fake news generated by AI and it was deep fakes for a while and all of that, like generating a completely fake

story from whole cloth is not, and has never been the real threat. I think the way that the news media manipulates you will always be based on what stories they choose to cover and not cover, like all of the news outlets choosing not to publish those hacked Trump emails and decide they're gonna sit on that But like the thing that you guys you know referenced about the story with the Haitian immigrants eating the pets The reason that fake story worked is because Fox News had been laying the groundwork for years By just cherry picking actual crimes.

Because in a country of 300 million people, you can find a trend, whatever trend you want. So anytime an illegal immigrant ran a stoplight, Fox News ran that as a headline and creates by just carefully sorting through. Again, you know, if a report comes out that says, well, actually, you know, native born people are more likely to commit crimes than immigrants, you simply don't report it. And likewise, like this thing with the, you know, the governor of North Carolina and that guy is Mark Robinson is his name, all that crazy stuff, like Fox News devoted like seven

minutes to that yesterday. Like they simply just bury it and in their broadcast. Right. That will always be the way by which people get into bubbles and get programmed. It's not, it does not require the fake new stuff will be a problem. It doesn't require a hoax. Just filtering what you report and choose not to report will always by far be the most powerful thing because for the most part you're sticking to

things that are real it's just that they're not representative of what's going on but you can absolutely create the impression that they are. Yeah just a wild selection bias has always been the way that the US media tends to operate because it's a big country and they know what stories they can get a lot of eyeballs on because they're scary and reinforce preconceived fears and beliefs. Probably the easiest way to manufacture consent too, is just by being like, and what if we just tell people about this all the time?

Now when the decision comes to do something awful, you're like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I don't know. That makes sense. I didn't know that like, so they're just not publishing the Trump emails. They're because they political, the Washington post, I think Judd Lugum also at popular

information said he was offered these documents and he said, because he was involved in the Podesta emails and he just doesn't think that anything in the emails are necessarily of note outside of just showing like a shitty campaign that was like his logic. But then it's also like, well, what's the logic of these other papers? Because they were more than willing to publish the emails in the last, like in the 2016 cycle, but it's yeah, it's just kind of like, well, what, what exact, like, tell us what the read, the logic is of it.

Yeah. But yeah, that's, that's sort of like where I feel like that story is kind of at, at the moment. Yeah. We were talking about this a little bit last week with regards to, there was a Russian created fake media, like fake, a local news story about Kamala Harris, like running someone over in her car and then driving away in San Francisco.

You could see that it was a fake news site that doesn't actually exist. They created the URL two days before. It wasn't overly convincing and it didn't seem to get that much media attention other than the debunking of it got a lot of attention. Whereas, you know, just Elon Musk having as many followers and as much sway as he has just tweeting any dumb bullshit absentmindedly is pretty, I think, more influential than I want to believe it is also.

Well, yeah. Now, especially with the block function being like, ah, even if you block me, you're still going to see my bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the thing with Hillary's emails in 2016, I think that is the perfect example of what I'm talking about here because that was the case where I think if you interviewed a thousand people, both sides, and said, can you summarize what was scandalous about her emails, the whole, but her emails

theme, which became the number one story of that entire campaign, because those were released in a drip feed, where it's like a new revelation every day. Can you summarize what the deal was with those emails and why that should be a deciding factor in who you vote for? deal was with those emails and why that should be a deciding factor in who you vote for. I think not five people in a thousand could accurately explain, but when the New York Times has Hillary Clinton emails as the A1 story every day, Hillary Clinton email scandal, by putting it at the top of the front page, you are saying that it's important. Yeah.

You are saying that it's huge and impactful, and this must be a terrible crime that's been like this must be disqualifying. So even if you watching it, don't fully understand what's bad about it or what it means or whatever, it doesn't matter because giving it that place on the front page indicates that it matters and And it's a negative story. So you're saying, Hey, all the other stuff in this election, not important. This email server, your personal email server security, candidates using personal email for like, that's what matters.

That's the thing that's at stake in this election. And they set the agenda that way. Again, the stuff they were reporting wasn't fake. It's just the amount of spotlight they chose to give to it, as opposed to anything else that created the impression that it gets, I think, as false as any something that was, you know, that had been gened up out of whole cloth. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think, yeah, I gave a look into like sort of what was going on in the DNC, but then people like John Podesta called a guy a prick and this is his risotto recipe. And you're like, what? And, but then at the same time, like, uh, you know, Colin Powell also had a private email server, a lot of people like, what's the emphasis about? But yeah, now it's just very much like, it's not in the public interest. Uh, Jason, what's something you think is underrated? much like it's not in the public interest.

Uh, Jason, what's something you think is underrated? Uh, the degree to which the most important stuff in this election probably has not happened yet. Uh, like in 2016, the thing with Hillary's emails, that wasn't until October. Uh, Trump's remember the access Hollywood tape, the grabbing by the pussy tape. That didn't come out until October 7th. What? The James, the James Comey letter that we thought that probably did throw

the election to Trump, that wasn't until October 28th. So in an election this close where it's going to be swayed by like 10,000 people, it's probably going to, it'll be determined by something that happens between now and November 5th. There's something probably in the month of October, that's when most people actually finally start paying attention and there will be some story, some event, something's going to happen that will probably tilt things one way or the other. Yeah.

Exactly. I mean, yeah, it's the October surprise of it all. And we're not even in October. So we'll, we'll see what this cycle brings. And I'm sure for people who are are the ones trying to peddle as much wacky misinformation or whatever, they're probably sitting on their most potent weapons until, like you're saying, much closer to the election. Cause that's really when it has the most impact on people's, at least

perception of what's happening. Yeah. An official was saying last week, that, like, the final 48 hours before the election are going to be absolute chaos on social media. Right. But, yeah, that's really upsetting that the Access Hollywood tape wasn't until October 7th. Like, that was one where it was like a bombshell that people like got over. Yeah. That's a thing where people in the wake of it was like, oh my gosh, he's

going to have to drop out because they still didn't understand how impervious. Like he didn't lose a single vote from that. Like they didn't. And this is why, if I had to put money on this election, I would bet on Trump because Kamala Harris can be heard by a scandal. Trump is impervious to scandal. There is no headline that I can imagine that would actually steer people away from Trump. What would it even be about?

Nothing about sex, that stuff's already out there. Nothing about racism, nothing about financial wrongdoing, all of that stuff. Some of which he's been charged with in court and found guilty. So it's like, what could come out that hasn't already come out? It just feels like he has an immunity that he's built up and that seems to be his superpower because it's true that his support seems to top out at like 47% or whatever in polls, but nothing pushes it down. Nothing.

Yeah. So it just feels like such a double standard where only one candidate is vulnerable to some bad story that they will come out with something a week for the election or just days before. And it seems like only one candidate is vulnerable to that kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, I think we've joked. We're like, what could even be the thing that his own supporters like, Oh, well, right, that kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, I think we've joked, we're like, what could even be

the thing that his own supporters like, oh, well, that's a bridge too far. It's like, would it even be something like a super progressive policy or something like that? Or then even then they're like, no, actually, no, I'm actually for that. Actually, I think climate change is really important and we should stop fracking.

It's like, oh, fuck, what is it? But yeah. There's definitely been rumors that he's on tape, like calling his supporters like, you know, horrible things and being very derisive towards his own supporters. They love I don't think that would. No, I don't think that would do it at all. Like, that's the closest I can come up with. Even if it was, it's like, and Donald Trump has been Hillary Clinton all along.

He'll be like, I don't know, man. I don't know. Even if she has some good ideas. Yeah. The, yeah. If he literally was on tape being like, they are a basket of to blur deplorables. I think they're discussed. Like it would be the tape.

Like if there was the tape that would undo the politician in the movie about a corrupt politician, whereas they're just like, I hate them all and I, I'm going to kill them when I get into office, we're going to like take all their money away. And like that probably wouldn't do it. Like they'd just find a way to justify it. Cause they're like, well, he's still, he's still going to bring the pain, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And they're like, yeah, you're bringing the pain. Then then we're the I can stomach anything. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about some news. So, y'all, this is Questlove, and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast I've been working on with the story pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records. It's a family friendly podcast. Yeah, you heard that right. A podcast for all ages. One you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to

toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nemmy, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out. Hey y'all! Are you ready for an explosive new podcast that brings together hip-hop and history? My name is Nimmini, and I'm the host of Historical Records, a brand new podcast for kids and families that proves in order to make history, you have to make some noise. -♪ Flash slam, another one gone. Bash bam, another one gone.

The cracker, the bat, and another one gone. The tipper, the cap, there's another one gone. And the best part? I make this show entirely by myself. Impressive, right? Mm-hmm. OK, OK. Maybe I get a little bit of help from my sidekick, Tina

the Raccoon. Every week on Historical Records, join me, Nimini, and Tina the Raccoon as we learn about the unsung heroes of the past and turn their history into hip hop. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel de Lilla. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unearths the plot to murder

a one woman WikiLeaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds.

Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture. I just don't believe they exist. I would feel my reaction shock and awe. That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for

The Legend of Sword Quest, a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing sword quest prizes. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way. Listen to the legend of SwordQuest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Bruce Bozzi. On my podcast Table for Two, we have unforgettable lunch after unforgettable lunch with the best guest you could possibly ask for, people like David Duchovny. You know, New Yorkers have a reputation of being very tough,

but it's not. It's not that way at all. They're very accepting. Jeff Goldblum. Are you saying secret fries? Secret fries. That's what you're saying. Yeah. And Kristen Wiig. I just became so aware that I'm such a loud chewer.

My husband's just like, sometimes I'll be eating and he'll just be looking at me. I'm like, I'm just eating. Like, I don't, I'm just eating. Like, I don't know how else to chew. Table For Two is a bit different from other interview shows. We sit down at a great restaurant for a meal and the stories start flowing. Our second season is airing right now

so you can catch up on our conversations that are intimate, surprising, and often hilarious. Listen to Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks.

President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. These are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer.

This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We're back. And the Senate has released their bipartisan report on what happened

at the July 13th Trump rally in Butler. And yeah, it seems to be basically what we thought at the time that like the most noteworthy thing is the incompetence of the secret service to kind of do their job. And just like law enforcement communicating seemed to be the big thing that they, again, the main findings were secret service failed to sufficiently coordinate with state and local law enforcement failed to adequately cover the building where

Trump's attempted assassin fired from failed to address line of sight concerns denied requests for additional resources and failed to pass on to other Lawrence law enforcement that there was a there was quote, credible intelligence of a threat. And they also noted in the report that the Secret Service denied responsibility or tried to deflect blame when pressed about their individual roles. So like, again, so it sounds like the biggest errors were, there

just weren't enough people available to secure all the buildings that could have posed a potential threat. And then sniper teams didn't tell Trump's details specifically to get him off the stage when they had identified a potential threat, like minutes had passed where they're like, like, I think they're like, yeah, normally you would have just told him, you know, get this guy off the stage. Like we have police officers rushing a building like with their guns drawn to something. So that would immediately be like, OK, pull the plug on this.

But that was not the case. You see them like in the in that video draw down on the sniper like and, you know, starting to get serious as he's like continuing to to deliver his. I guess you could call it a stumps whatever his remarks. deliver his, I guess you could call it a stumps, whatever, his remarks. Yeah. So yeah, that was always the weirdest thing about their response was that they just didn't, they weren't like, Hey, we have a snipe, you know, they didn't communicate the, uh, out loud. Yeah.

And obviously also the weirdest thing is the water, the guy who was on the water tower, who is clearly, uh, the one can fire from two miles away or however far away that person who fired a shot, the conspiracy theory that this was all staged. One of, one of them involves a guy on a water tower, two miles away who fired the shot that grazed Trump's ear. So just, um, uh, supernatural, uh, marksmanship being relied on to graze his ear so that he wouldn't actually be hurt. But yeah, where's the report on that?

Well, I mean, the house is doing their version of investigation too. And since that's a Republican controlled body, I'm sure you might get a slightly spicier take on what is happening, but yeah, overall, it sounds like a big, big boo boo, big failure since the Reagan assassinate an assassination attempt. Here's a good life lesson in this for any of you young people out there, because you're going to find this happen in your own life, you can have a system in place that is deeply broken or neglected, and it can

take a long time to notice it because the thing that it's designed to prevent just hasn't happened. For example, whenever there's an earthquake, a whole lot of buildings will fall over that it turns out we're not up to code because it turns out you build a building and all the anti-earthquake stuff you're supposed to do if you bribe an inspector, it's fine because it may be 50 years before an earthquake happens the whole time that building looks fine. This is very similar to that. It seems like the, their processes, their staffing, their training,

everything had been degrading. They've been kind of half-assing it, but you just don't know because there aren't that many serious assassination attempts. There's lots of nut jobs, like some idiot with a flare gun tried to climb the fence at the White House and the president wasn't even there, but where somebody planned it, found a spot, was good with the weapon, knew, you know, studied where to go, how to get up there undetected.

That's rare. And when someone finally tries it, they find a process that is broken. The process of that whole perimeter they're supposed to clear and cooperating with the local cops to clear that perimeter, to communicate about the spots and where somebody needed to be all that. That process was, and you will find in your business or in your marriage or anything, stuff that looks fine for years until the bad thing happens. And you realize how unprepared you were. This is, this was almost a, and it's funny now, because we're like doing

this report and it's, you know, page three news. It's like, okay, we're in some alternate universe where this man's head exploded in 4K in front of the world. That there would be, you know, like we would know the names of these secret service agents, like we would all, they would be household names of which guy allowed this failure, which person failed to, you failed to report the guy on the roof and so on. And instead it's just like, yeah, it's and yeah, they could, we could have done better guys, we kind of fumbled it, kind of biffed it there.

Yeah. I mean, the two things that earthquake prevention and like checking every possible threat and eyeline have in common is they're both so annoying to do and Usually I won't even happen. Yeah, it probably won't even happen. So like what is your fucking deal? So you have that you have that dynamic combined with I feel like any time the Secret Service is involved in a Like anytime the Secret Service is involved in an action movie, they're pretty locked up. Even when the plot is like, this is the guy who allowed JFK to be assassinated in the

line of fire, it's still like he is Clint Eastwood and he's like a super heroic badass that they ultimately save the president this time around. And I feel like, don't they like White House Down and like those movies, isn't there Secret Service involved in those? I feel like just generally like the branding. Yeah, I feel like the branding being done for the Secret Service is pretty strong. Yeah, rather than like sex worker scandals, like when during Obama's presidency and stuff like that.

Like these guys sound like a bunch of frat guys Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, they're Gerard Butler. They're Gerard Butler. Yeah, like it so they Described this as the biggest Secret Service failure since the Reagan assassination attempt but like even the Reagan assassination attempt I The thing I remember is like a guy standing there with like a tiny Uzi in his hands, looking bad ass, like being a walkie talkie, you know? They're like, yeah, he got shot though. He got shot. And then the other guy who got, the guy who got shot and paralyzed who Brady, right? Yeah. Who they named laws after. And I did not, truly did not know the Reagan assassination

attempt was seen as a secret service failure. Totally forgotten. Like we don't remember it that way. No. Yeah. I got a little oozy, like a cute oozy. That's unbelievable. It's unbelievable that they gave them that too. It's compact man.

Yeah. Especially when you know what happened with JFK, what actually happened with JFK. Tell them Jack. Tell them Jack. I can't do it, Miles. We have other stories to get to. All right, all right, all right. I think the Secret Service accidentally

delivered the kill shot. All right, let's talk about the death penalty. Yeah. Because it's, yeah. Yeah, it's an arcane feature of our carceral system that should be done away with. You know, the reason I think it's important to talk about, because on Tuesday, Marcellus Williams was put to death in Missouri, and he's a man that even

prosecutors thought was innocent of a 1998 murder. Williams and his lawyers had been in like a long fight to clear his name and to prevent him from being put to death by the state for the murder of a woman, Felicia Gale. They had previously been granted stays twice due to the by the state for the murder of a woman, Felicia Gale. They had previously been granted stays twice due to the murky nature of the conviction. And like despite mishandling of evidence, reliance on like jailhouse snitch testimony or racist jury selection process and a total lack of DNA evidence

that tying him to the crime scene whatsoever. Governor Mike Parson let the execution go forward. The NAACP has described it as a lynching. And you know, the death penalty, you know, is again, I think this is why it's important to look at it in a sort of larger context in terms of like policy, right? Because it's not only just a waste of resources, but it's also a glaring example of how our carceral system disproportionately again,

affects people of color. You look at you know, the death row population is 41% black, even though black people make up about 13% of the U.S. population. You look at just even how, like when victims are white and the accused is a person of color, like the people seeking the death penalty goes up exponentially.

But if you have a victim that is a person of color, and even if the perpetrator or the accused is white, the figures are much less in favor of the death penalty. So there's example after example and study after study just shows the inherent racism that the system is built on. And I think this example in Missouri is just another, it just encapsulates how black men are viewed by our quote unquote justice system, because the victim's family even wanted William's life to be spared. You know, they're like, we like for us closure would be for his life to be

spared and they're like, we would love to have his sentence commuted or whatever. Just please like spare his life. And, but the governor of Missouri, uh, Parson, he just has a really terrible track record when it comes to clemency and that he has never granted it when it And but the governor of Missouri, Parson, he just has a really terrible track record when it comes to clemency and that he has never granted it when it comes to the death penalty. Like he wouldn't even like not even people were in death row, like he wouldn't even pardon people that were proven innocent.

And there was even someone actually who they found who was guilty of the crime, literally serving a sentence for that crime. He wouldn't even pardon those people. And they were black. But you know, you know where this is going. You know who he does give pardons to? A white cop who murdered a black man in 2019. And one of one of our favorite characters from the summer of 2020, the McCloskeys, that like white couple on the lawn with the gun, who pulled guns on like those protesters outside of their house and the woman who was just very loosely holding her pistol. Yeah.

Yeah. They they received part of the gun like a glass like a fifth glass of Chardonnay just like loosely in her hand just aerating it. Yeah. Just got it. Just let it breathe a little bit. I got to let this thing breathe. So I mean, oddly enough, then this is why this sort of relates to the election, too,

is the death penalty was another one of those planks of the Democrats platform that just went poof this year. You're like in 2016, the platform said we will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment. And you're like, what the fuck happened? Like Joe Biden even ran on being against the death penalty in 2020. But now it's completely different. And Kamala Harris to her credit, actually has a decent track record on this too.

Like as DA she's like, I will not seek the death penalty. And she didn't her 2019 campaign website said, quote, Kamala believes the death penalty is immoral, discriminatory, ineffective, and a gross misuse of taxpayer taxpayer dollars. So like recently, journalists reached out to the campaign and asked about like their specific stance on the death penalty. They got no response at all. And it's just like, what? Like, you know, again, Joe Biden ran didn't seem risky for Joe Biden.

He won in 2020. I mean, it was close, but was it, was it down to the pro death penalty vote that would have swayed things? And I think that's just kind of like another odd thing, an example of like shifting to this, like courting a voter that I'm, I'm like, who is this voter you're trying to court by like removing this plank of the democratic platform. Because again, it didn't seem- And changing your positions.

Like changing your positions doesn't help you. Even though I get the logic, it's been the logic of the mainstream democratic parties since the Clintons, but it doesn't work because it makes it seem like you don't have the courage of your convictions or any, like any strong beliefs, like, which seems to be what people respond to. They want to have a sense of like who you are on these things. But I was really curious about this because I looked up, I wanted to see if the death penalty had gotten more popular or why they would go away from being anti.

And it's really interesting because back as recently as the mid 90s, the death penalty on they have like Gallup polls in this in 1994, 80% of Americans were in favor of the death penalty. That was like at the apex of the crime, the 90s crime epidemic and the crack epidemic and all of that stuff. And it has been slowly declining ever since to the point now it's like 53 to 44, 53 in favor, 44% against the death penalty is less popular now than pretty much at any point in history in terms.

So, and we don't, you know, there's like half the states still have the death penalty, but a lot of those that do have gone into a moratorium, they haven't executed anybody in decades. Nationwide, we executed 24 people last year, which is a lot if you think in terms of the state killing people, but in terms of the total number of people we have like in prison and on death row, it's not that many. We don't like to do it very often. The federal government hadn't executed anybody in almost two decades prior to Trump becoming president and then they turned that back on, but I don't know.

It's interesting because it feels like one of those things that has just been kind of fading from the system anyway. So to now be afraid of coming out as being anti death penalty when this seems like the safest time to do it. I don't know that I get it. Well, especially on the back of this story, you can be like, this is why we need to rethink this. We're just putting people to death where even the prosecution is like, we got serious doubts about this conviction, honestly, that we're still moving forward with this. And Hillary Goodfriend, Hillary Goodfriend and Jacobin like raised a point in terms of how Democrats, this was specific to immigration, how like they are now sounding pretty similar to Republicans.

Like if you look at the ads that the Harris campaign is taking out in like Arizona, if they're sort of, she's like, she was a border state DA, and she knows how to be tough on the border and like illegal immigration. And it's basically just echoing very similar rhetoric in terms of like, we have to secure the border from immigrants rhetoric that comes out of Republicans. And like she started positing, it's like if voters are attracted by like a candidate, like that stands for the cruelest punishments, like why, why would they settle for second best? Especially when you have Trump who's like I'm gonna expand the death

penalty to fucking haters and drug deal like anybody and it's just like what I'm I'm just fail again to understand like this it's it's fine why remove that just yeah just keep the your like to Jason's point their support for this is dwindling and I get that it's a small majority, but this doesn't seem like the kind of issue voter they like, we got to really be careful with the death penalty. And I get why they would be like things like fracking or whatever, that's more top of mind, but the death penalty just seems like such an odd thing to

just sort of just ignore now given like, again, that we're seeing this is something that affects the community that Kamala herself is a part of. So I felt like this should be an afterthought to be like, yeah, man, I'm fucked the death penalty too. It is what it is. I think it's because of that.

I think they would say they're playing defense against Willie Horton shit and a good portion of the voting population is racist and she's a woman of color and they need to like counterbalance that and like do this like, you know, strategic triangulation, so that she is like protected against attacks on that. But it's just, it takes the humanity out of it. It's, it's not an effective way to run a campaign. And we've seen that year after year with the Democratic Party. And while I've seen people, tons of people running and being tough on crime, I can't remember anybody running specifically on more death penalty.

The death penalty is great. Like it doesn't, the pro-death penalty side doesn't have like an anti-abortion, like an equivalent of that movement where there's like a death penalty voter. Other than you have tons of anti death penalty voters, but in terms of there being like pro, I don't know. I don't see people taking to the streets, like demanding this guy be killed, despite. You know, everything about the case being shaky. I don't know.

I don't get it. But also a side note, if you're a fan of true crime and you read a lot or listen to a lot of podcasts about famous murder cases, so many trials are just like this. Right. Yeah. Where the only testimony is from somebody who got their own sentence reduced, where the DNA stuff was like kind of shaky and it looked like it's actually kind of matched somebody who wasn't there and actually his wasn't technically at the scene.

And, uh, the one person who thought they saw him at the scene, their testimony actually contradicted that is common. Yeah. Yeah. And you see something like we grew people at my age grew up with the OJ case back in the nineties and, and watched when you actually have high class lawyers who can pick through every little bit of the house of cards of evidence and to a jury can make it look like, yeah, this is a bunch of circumstantial crap.

They've cobbled together. We, nobody saw him there. We don't have a murder weapon. Uh, you don't have a direct witness. No, the rest of it's all questionable. It's like, Hey, that's every case. It is so rare that they've got a guy on camera doing it or whatever. And so they piece together a case.

And I'm sure they get it right most of the time, because a lot of times it is obvious, you know, husband kills his wife, whatever. There's not, you're not going to claim that like, no, actually a serial killer broke in and then left no traces behind. But in so many cases like this, they've pieced together what looks like a strong case, but you start pulling at any of the individual threads. It's so shaky. Yeah.

And I mean, like whenever we've had, you know, like public defenders on as guests too, we always are reminded of how like, you know, when the prosecutors, they think they have some, or the cops think they have someone, like they just got to go all in on it. Or other times, just like in the process of interrogating people. It's like wear them the fuck down until they kind of break and admit maybe they had something to do with it and at least we can run with that. But yeah, again, it's like it's just odd. It feels like low hanging fruit or just the very least something that wasn't controversial.

But I think because everything needs to be no, this person isn't a liberal, even though they're running as a Democrat. Like they're actually tough on crime in the border. You just get this like weird dissonance that I think for even like like long time Democratic voters like, wait, what the what? What is this? The Republican Party or what the fuck is going on? But again, this is clearly the strategy for that campaign to try and figure out how do we pick off the most people in the middle to try and deny Trump a win. And I mean, the polling that it's it's it seems very close, but we again,

we will see where that goes. But I just don't. It's just a really weird thing to sort of like shy away from it doesn't seem like I get why you'd probably be like, I don't know about universal health care because they're going to say I'm a socialist or whatever. But the death penalty is like, again, just it's fucking stupid and we don't need it anymore. Yeah. I don't appreciate you disparaging the Al theory from the staircase, but I agree with everything else you said. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Sup, y'all. This is Questlove, and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast

I've been working on with the Story Pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records. It's a family-friendly podcast. Yeah, you heard that right. A podcast for all ages. One you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nimini, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out. Hey, y'all. Are you ready for an explosive new podcast that

brings together hip hop and history? My name is Nimini, and I'm the host of Historical Records, a brand new podcast for kids and families that proves, in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Flash slam, another one gone. Bash bam, another one gone. The cracker, the bat, and another one gone. The tip of the cap, there's another one gone.

And the best part? I make this show entirely by myself. Impressive, right? Me too, huh? Oh, OK. OK. Maybe I get a little bit of help from my sidekick, Tina the Raccoon.

Every week on Historical Records, join me, Nimini. Me too. And Tina the Raccoon, as we learn about the unsung heroes of the past and turn their history into hip-hop. Listen to historical records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel de Lilla. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that

unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. Tafni exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds. Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture.

I just don't believe they exist. I would feel my reaction shock and awe. That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of SwordQuest, a podcast about the fall of Atari The Legend of SwordQuest, a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing SwordQuest prizes. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure

across four decades. It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way. Listen to The Legend of SwordQuest on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's not that way at all. They're very accepting. Jeff Goldblum. Are you saying secret fries? Secret fries. What? That's what you're saying. And Kristen Wiig. I just became so aware that I'm such a loud chewer.

My husband's just like, sometimes I'll be eating and he'll just be looking at me. I'm like, I'm just eating. I don't know how else to chew. Table for Two is a bit different from other interview shows. We sit down at a great restaurant for a meal and the stories start flowing. Our second season is airing right now so you can catch up on our conversations that are intimate, surprising, and often hilarious. Listen to Table For Two with Bruce Bozzi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president.

One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Glennett was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We're back.

And James Cameron just made headlines and this time it's not for announcing like the 14th Avatar film, this time he is joining the board of equally dispiriting he's joining the board, equally dispiriting. He's joining the board of directors for Stability AI. By the way, I enjoyed both Avatar movies. I don't know why I turned into Trump there, but I do wish. And I think he is making a different film that I'll look up what the other film is. But this is just a bummer because, you know, he's always been at the forefront of special effects. And the board that he's joining is the AI firm that developed the stable diffusion text to image generative AI model, which is where like a in video focused model that I think creates like some of the wild like this is AI videos that look like an acid trip, like that you put a camera on someone's brain during an acid trip.

What's the, what's the, what does he gain from this? Exactly. I mean, like, I know he's always into like technology in terms of filmmaking, like that's he always prides himself on being on the cutting edge of stuff like that. But with this, is he the cool version? He'll bring it down from the inside. But I don't know. He's always been more acutely aware of anyone,

of the dangers of artificial intelligence. Yeah, exactly. A cautionary tale he all gave us in Terminator. But maybe if we, we take a new look at that movie and it's secretly like, Oh, I want, I want a robot. That would be so sick. It's like the thesis of that movie. His quote here is saying that the intersection of generative AI and CGI image creation may be the next wave.

That means the ability to do effects without having to pay people to do the effects is what he sees. He likes money. Okay. So it will be phrased as a, to make the process more efficient, right? Whatever. So you can, you have a server room and a piece of software that instead of, because remember back in Titanic, that was 1997, the movie came out, you know,

shot 95, 96 when they were doing all those effects. That stuff was rendered frame by frame, like those water droplets that were coming off the hull of the boat, that was all CGI and that was a person painting those in. So I do not doubt that when, you know, the budget of that film, a lot of that went to artists, talented artists, spending many thousands of hours doing work by hand to make it look just right. Because it was hard to beat the human eye when it comes to making something like that look good.

But if that was just a piece of software that you could tell it, make water run off the side of this thing and then it runs overnight and then boom, there you go. And you did not have to pay a single person. I don't know. I guess like that's how automation works, but to have a creative person want to bring that to the creative world. I don't know. I mean, when you, when you make billions of dollars, I guess that's just what will happen to you.

You know, like we're just sort of like, I can imagine too. How much is it going to cost? All I want is the fucking guy to fall off the boat, hit the big propeller blade and then flop into the fucking water. What? $50,000 just for that? Now, fuck this. And then this is where I'll drop a fucking guy off of the drop a guy off the Titanic. Is this shot? Is the practical set still up? Do we still have the setup in Mexico? Fuck it, dude. I'll do it. Just fucking drop off. Get the propeller blade, man.

I don't want to fucking pay that. Yeah, man. Yeah. I need this shit. So, yeah, I mean, it's it's a yeah. Like to your point, like Jason, it's like when someone who values creativity and is like always talked about his own love of imagination and always exploring all the ways that you can express your ideas in cinema, to then be like, yeah, but that other person who's integral to that and me even getting to where I am,

total fuck that person completely because it's too expensive. That's just too much, man. It just slows shit down. Well, the company is not currently building liquid metal killing machines. It is being sued for copyright infringement and just laid off a bunch of staff members. So they're already doing the work that they will probably be helping James Cameron do. Yeah. And to be clear, the way this thing will make special effects is you will

have it scan a bunch of existing movies, including effects humans created. And it will say, Oh, I know how to do that now. You need like a spaceship flying up out of water. You need all those water droplets. Like some, some person did by hand when whatever movie came out 15 years ago. Well, guess what? I've got that in the database because I scanned that movie. And like movies that start looking like sampled music tracks and stuff.

We were like, bro, I'm pretty sure that's the wave from the perfect storm in this movie. It was like, what the fuck? And like, yeah, I, did you see that guy fall off the boat? I think that was the propeller guy from Titanic. They just recontextualized it for this film. It's just the dream. It's like the Wilhelm scream.

Yeah. It's like, that's the explosion. Look, they used it. They used the explosion from Armageddon. It's a guy, but they have to change things. So it's a guy running down the street, but they're using the guy falling off the Titanic. But it's moving.

And then he hits this thing and starts spinning for some reason. A different plane. Yeah, just a different gravitational plane fully. You're like, and then he hits this thing and starts spinning for some reason. Yeah. Just a different gravitational plane fully. You're like, is that physically possible? Yeah. He's being blown down the street. It was a big wind.

They just have like a voiceover guy coming. Can I ask you guys a question? Cause you, you are obviously covering the news every single day. You've probably done many stories about AI and stuff like that. Yeah. Why is it that in the cultural imagination or or why is it that in the headlines, all of the examples of AI, it's all this nonsense. It can create a very bad photograph with too many fingers. It can create a very trippy video that has the worst uncanny valley thing you've ever seen in your life.

We think that maybe someday it will make movies for you. So why is it all the one thing none of us want AI to do instead of, Hey, we think in the future it can diagnose cancer faster than a doctor can. We think in the future it can help genetically engineer crops. It can survive drought and climate change. Well, like why is there like an image issue or a marketing issue on the side of these AI people, or is that really where they're putting their money right now? Like, is all the work actually going into all of this media stuff instead of like,

it's solving people's everyday problems that would get them excited about it. I think all this stuff is kind of part of like this sort of circus aspect of it that keeps people like interested on a general level and be like, oh, whoa, it does this, it does that. Because for the people that they're really trying to appeal to, like on Wall Street, it's probably easier for them to connect the dots rather than like, oh, it can do really complex computations that could maybe like cause breakthroughs for science. It's like, hey, man, articles can be written quicker without people, or it can make a little video for your advertising company. But then I think what they're also showing is like, it's there,

like how it's getting better. And that's also part of the process. Like, look, do you remember when Will Smith was eating spaghetti all weird like a couple months ago? Now Will Smith eats spaghetti even like a little less weird. So it's getting better y'all. And who knows where this who knows what Will Smith can do in the next iteration of this. And people are like, Oh shit, yeah, yeah, it's getting better and better and better. While at the same time, like people on Wall Street, I'm like, dude, this it's all this stuff is horseshit.

Like it's not even close to doing the kinds of things that they wanted to freak people out about with. It's just becoming an energy drain and something that isn't actually creating any financial return. It's just, I think, just all spectacle at this point to try and cover for the fact that it's not really doing the Skynet kind of shit Sam Altman wants you to think of. Yeah. It can't answer the question how many's are in strawberry. And so instead they're putting a very sexy, exciting possibility on the horizon of like what it could be doing. Uh, which I get, yeah, to your point, nobody wants it to do that.

It can do those scientific things. It does feel like that should be where they're focusing. Like the thing about figuring out the structure of proteins, like years before we would have been able to do that with just humans is really cool and like feels like they should just focus on that. But I think that idea is a little abstract. And then I also think because of the way money is spent in the entertainment industry, you can have not very much and get a lot of people to spend a lot of money.

They can just promise great things while actually having absolute bullshit and trick a lot of people. If you Google how many Rs in the word strawberry right now, it's still coming back. The word strawberry has two Rs. It's like the search lab over you. Even right now. It's still coming back. The word strawberry has two R's. It's like the search lab over you. Like even right now it's still doing it. But then it's like, however, AI models can sometimes make mistakes when answering the question about this word and then like makes an excuse and you're

like, then the fuck dude, you can't count three R's in a word. Yeah. Right. Cause it's not, it's not thinking people keep assuming that it is thinking. It's not, it's just predicting the next string of text. It's, it's, this is what I've never gotten. I realized that I am a ludite here when it comes to AI, but an AI has never. Lived in the world.

So when an AI is trying to describe something to you, it has never experienced that thing. It's grabbing some text that doesn't mean anything to it and just stringing it together. And maybe it will be, it will form a coherence since maybe it won't, but it's, you know, you can, an AI can go find you a recipe for cornbread because there's a million recipes for cornbread on the internet.

They can go grab you one. It has never for cornbread because there's a million recipes for cornbread on the internet. They can go grab you one. It has never eaten cornbread. They cannot, it cannot tell you how to improve your cornbread recipe because it has no concept of what that should taste like, or it's never touched it. It's, I don't know, I get such a disconnect when people it's like, well, someday you'll have an AI friend that can, if you're lonely, can talk

to you. It's like, yeah, but it's, you won't be able to talk to it about anything because it has never lived a life. Right. If it's joking with you, it's just grabbing a joke it found in its database that somebody else told somewhere on the internet and it just stole it. But it can't, it can't observe something about the world because it doesn't live in the world.

So you're not having, you're just talking to yourself. Yeah. And we have talked about this so frequently that our listeners are like, yeah, no, guys, shut the fuck up. I'm sorry. I do not listen to the show, guys. I didn't know that. And that is unacceptable, but we'll talk about that off mic.

But yeah, I mean, we've just, so if people haven't heard those episodes, we've had like people who are experts in AI come on and say the same thing that Jason was just saying. Like these are the same basic idea as the auto-complete in your phone, just predicting the next word. That's all it's doing.

It's just doing it at a higher level that requires the burning of lots of fossil fuels. Yeah. Hey, and it's just, it's, it's spectacle that will hopefully inspire increased investment. And that's really what it's all boiling down to at the moment. I mean, Amazon named one of their companies, the Mechanical Turk, like they're, they know their fucking well. They know their fucking well. It's a fucking guy inside. There's a guy in there, dumb-dumbs.

It's not fucking real. Jason Pargen, as always, what a pleasure having you. Where can people find you, follow you, and also read your new book? The book is called, I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom. It is not political, but it is relevant and it is

specifically about a bunch of people on the internet who think that they have gotten wind of a domestic terror attack. And they're going to try to stop it, but it is a bunch of strangers on the internet with internet poisoned brain, uh, internet poisoned brains, and it goes just as badly as you would expect. Uh, so yeah, that book is available now in all formats, including audio. I do not read the audio book. They hired a professional to do that. And it isn't me for some reason.

It's a very good read. Everybody should check it out. Is there a work of media Jason that you've been enjoying? I've got a tweet that I like that's, uh, from Twitter user PJ Evans says Paul Thomas Anderson sounds like something your mom says to you when you're acting up. Paul Thomas Anderson getting here right now. Mom, that's not even my name. I don't give a damn.

Richard, what'd you do, dude? Do parents still do that user middle name when they're mad? I don't know if that's a reference. It's an old timey reference. No, my parents definitely did it. Okay. But I can't speak to other parents do it anymore because I'm. Yeah.

I think also culturally specific to, to do the three name call out. Yeah. Yeah. They suddenly start treating you like an assassin. Yeah. Yeah. Like where my mom would just be like, bucka. Yeah.

Stupid in Japanese. I'm. Yeah, yeah. Like where my mom would just be like, bucka. Yeah. Stupid in Japanese. I'm like, Oh yeah. What John Christopher O'Brien. Oh, what I knew I was, I was in some shit when I heard that. I knew I was in some shit with my mom yelled out my social security, dude. That's what I fucking knew. All my identifying information.

If I, if I did ever assassinate any anyone That would be what I'd go down as John Christopher O'Brien, you know, oh right, right, right? Yeah. Hey, man He's our JC man, you know Hey miles. Yeah, can people find you is there working media you've been enjoying. Yeah, let's see I'm on Twitter and Instagram at miles of gray You can find Jack and I on the basketball podcast miles and Jack. I'm at Boostery's. They can find me talking about 90 day fiance on for 20 day fiance.

Tweet I like is from at Falco. It says, Yo, what's up? It's just Spotify DJ. Damn, you got some fire taste, Neff. Well, let me put you on to something I think you heard before. Now playing Million Dollar Baby. I'm just playing the biggest hits. That Spotify DJ is sometimes so off.

I'm like, please, just I don't even know why I erratically hit that button. I saw that tweet and I was unaware of this product. So there's a, there's a function. An AI DJ. Oh no. It's like, what's up, Jack? It's me, your DJ.

We're gonna get into some grooves that you were really messing with last year. And let's start the vibe off with one of your favorite artists, Outkast. And it will do something like based on what you play a lot. And they're like, all right, let's switch gears. Here's some Vietnamese Christmas music. And you're like, all right. But I don't know if that was the vibe I was looking for. But cool.

So, yeah, but shout out the AI DJs all around the world and it's another piece of media that I do like is I'm a big fan of the game ghost of Tsushima and Today there was an announcement trailer for the follow-up called ghost of Yote and it looks fucking really good But I'm preparing myself for troll backlash because the main character is a woman and inevitably people would be like, woman can't do samurai sword. But yeah, the fucking trailer looks great. So anyone who is a fan of Ghost of Tsushima,

check that trailer out because it looks pretty cool. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien. I liked a couple of tweets. We'll just go with this one. Cybershell at Cybershell tweeted, this section of Jim Carrey's Wikipedia article cracks me up. And I'm just gonna read a paragraph

from Jim Carrey's Wikipedia article. In April, 2022, Carrey announced that he was considering retirement from the film industry, explaining, I have enough, I've done enough, I am enough. When asked if he would ever come back, his response was, it depends. If the angels bring some sort of script that's written in gold ink that says to me that it's going to be really important for people to see, I might continue down the road, but I'm taking

a break. In February, 2024, it was announced that Carey would reprise his role as Dr. Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. No paragraph. I saw that trailer. Yeah, that was wild. Oh man, my kids are fucked already. Psyched for Sonic the Hedgehog 3, unfortunately. You can find us on Twitter at Daily ZydeGuys. We're at The Daily ZydeGuys on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and a website, DailyZydeGuys.com,

where we post our episodes and our footnotes, where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode. So, this is a song that we think you might enjoy. Hey, Miles, is there a song that you think people might enjoy? Hey, it's your Spotify DJ, and I think you should listen to one of the biggest songs of the summer, Million Dollar Baby by my boy, Tommy Richmond. Though, it's a song that I think we should go out on if you like I was just listening to some new job best who's like, you know, obviously one of the most like iconic

Beat makers from Japan and really kicked off like the chill beat scene like the interstitials of like adult swim You know samurai shampoos on that soundtrack and there's another Japanese producer I stumbled upon called pigeonigeon Dust and also has a very similar vibe, which is really enjoyable, jazzy sort of sample beats, easy to listen to. It's called Nothing But Jazz Loops and the artist is Pigeon Dust. All right. We will.

I don't like the idea of Pigeon Dust because I've inhaled quite a bit of it living in New York City. I bet. Yeah. Pige pigeon dander. Oh, Jesus Christ. So anyways, but go listen to that and enjoy it. The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio Apple podcast or wherever

you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to do it for us this morning. We're back this afternoon to tell you what is trending and we'll talk to you all then. Bye. Bye. John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a warm woman wikileaks.

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