Tomorrow - Strawberry Letter 2.3

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

This week on Tomorrow, Amazon has an order of its own, the Department of Justice takes on Google, and Josh and Rani dissect their For You Pages only to find them lacking. It's time to pick up a can of Celsius, hit the play button, and please make sure to check the basement for your missing cat before calling the police. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, and welcome to tomorrow. I'm your host, Joshua Topolsky. And I'm your other host, Ronnie Molof. We're back for another week of exciting conversation about all, all the news or some of the news, maybe a small portion of the news about all the news or some of the news, maybe a small portion of the news, but the most important stories in the news about technology, the internet, Elon Musk tweets. Am I allowed to say Elon Musk's tweets anymore? Can I not say that?

Yeah, you could say it. I assume he'll come up. That's my thing, not saying the word they want you to say. They wanna say X, they wanna say X, they want you to say X, they want you to say meta. I'm going to say Twitter and Facebook. That's your little jab to the powers that be. I love that.

Tiny, tiny little, hey. Couture rebellion. I'm going to use your old name. I'm not going to brand with you. Describing anything as X to me is really painful. Anyhow, but we're going to talk about the news this week around technology and technology related items.

And have I said the word technology enough? Because I don't think I have. I think I need to. No, we haven't hit our quota yet. That's right. 15 minimum, 15 technologies at the opening of the show or we don't get our. No one's going to advertise on here.

We don't get our money from big tech. Yeah. All right, so what's going on this week, Ronnie? I don't know, even, fill me in. A. All right. So what's going on this week, Ronnie? I don't know even you fill me in a few big things. We had I did a piece on what I think iPhone sales might look like, you know, how they might look compared to years prior. I just looked at a traffic data to apple.com way to make yourself. Yeah, I know. Well, it's a big deal. You know, the iPhone came out and you can

preorder it. So like traffic wasn't good. It's low. Yeah, traffic. Not low, I's low. Yeah, traffic. Not low, I guess. Well, I got similar web data for the past three years. You could see like the iPhone event is always like the biggest traffic driver to apple.com. And then a few days later when you could pre-order, the traffic pops back up again.

So I was able to compare those days. Downward line past three years. So so far it looks like, you know, the, there's not any like leading interest in it. Yeah. We talked about this last week. I, I, I, I'm like, again, it could just be me, but I'm like, is it out yet? That's how I feel. That's my, my, my last, the last time I thought about the new iPhone, I was like, is it out? I can't remember.

And then I didn't bother to check cause I'm not, I don't feel like I need to upgrade. I feel like this, and we already said this last week, so I'm not gonna rehash it, but I do feel like this launch in particular is a, it feels to me like an inflection point with Apple and the iPhone. There's just something about it that feels like

we've like fully crossed out of the zone of like people really being invested in like the concept of Apple being innovative in a phone. Yeah. And like, you know, as we said, it's going to have Apple intelligence, which isn't even on it till next month. So like people are probably, you know, wait and you know, here if it, if there's anything like actually useful or good or you know, an improvement.

So the follow up to our, to our last week's conversation is essentially what we felt was true, which is- Yeah, we were like, meh. And then everyone else was like, meh. So wait and see at least. The meh phone. The meh phone.

I think eye yawn was the eyebrow we came up for. Eye yawn. Very good. I mean, I wasn't workshopping that with you, but- was the eyebrow we came up for. Eye yawn. Eye yawn. Very good. I mean, I wasn't workshopping that with you, but. There's good work going on even when you're not there. Just, I always find it hard to believe, but when I'm not around doing everything,

somehow things are still good. No, I mean, yeah, no, I'm always very pleasantly surprised by, actually, you've had a lot of really good, I don't wanna, you've already been patting yourself in the back for this iPhone article you wrote, but you've had a lot of really great headlines. You've had some very good headlines.

Usually that's how it works, say I come up with a headline and then I have to work backwards. That's the way to do it. That is the way to do it. In a way, I mean, I think I've told this, I mean, in a way, I mean, I've, I think I've told this to the team, but my process on headlines is very inside baseball media

stuff. My process on headlines is always like, start with like the worst clickbait headline you can think of and then try to work your way back from that to a place where you don't feel embarrassed to publish it. You know what I mean? Until it's not lies. Until it's not lies and, and deception. Anyway, but. So work backward until it's deception. Anyway, but-

So work backward until it's legitimate. Yes, exactly. Like many things in life, you have to start at your worst. Before you can- It could only get better from here. Before you can become your best. That's a little, let's get that on a t-shirt, right?

So I think that's all we have to say about iPhones, right? Yeah, I don't care, that's fine. What about Amazon making everyone come back to the office five days a week? Like this is, you know, 2019. I don't, this is to me is a, look, it's a controversial topic because there are a lot of people, certainly a lot of people online who,

I mean, like there's this like, the COVID's still around. I mean, COVID's still around though, feels, I mean, maybe I'm misreading all of what I'm seeing out there. Maybe this is, you know, the media has tricked me into believing this. Feels much more managed now by, I mean, it doesn't feel like we're in the midst of a pandemic. I understand that there are some people

who might view it that way, but it seems like we've gotten it into some kind of control. I don't know, I haven't looked at the death numbers lately. Maybe I'm totally confused about this. COVID seems like less of a concern, which is why we were all remote, right? Like originally everybody's like, we got to be remote. I'd like to point out that we're both remote right now.

You and I. We're both currently remote. You're more remote than I am. Right. You actually go into the office. I just hang out here. Yes. You hang out here. Yes, you hang out there.

But- And do nothing. But then, yes, there's this thing, it's like, okay, safety, I think we're okay on the safety piece. What I have not seen, and what I do not, in some ways, do not believe is that there is a correlation between being physically in an office with somebody and your level of productivity.

Now that's not true for every person's job. Like, for instance, you were in a warehouse and your job is to get something off a shelf in a warehouse. My guess is you'll be much less productive if you're at home. For the type of work that we do, I can speak intimately about what we do, which is, my newsrooms have always been remote. From the first time that I blogged for Engadget,

we were all in separate, presumably, our mom's basement, typing away about gadgets. Where are you now? Currently in my, in my mom's basement. Okay. But it's much been greatly improved. She's really, she really spruced the place up. Um, no. So, so it's like, what did you see? It's not radical to me. And what I, what I have not seen, what I have not, what has, doesn't seem to have been produced by anybody. And I don't know where the hell this data is. Or these data are, I don't know how to do that. You're fine.

Hate that word is very complex. That shows this that it matters, that it matters that, you know, and like, I don't know if it's like a feeling I do like being, I have to say, I like being, we had a, we had an like being, I have to say, I like being, we had an RTO thing at our company, and it's not every single day, but it's several days a week for a lot of people. I do like being in the office sometimes.

I think it's a super fun experience. I think it's great to be able to just BS with the people who are your coworkers casually. I also find it unbelievably distracting. I find my productivity is down. Oh, yeah, yeah. If I go to the office, I have to then make up for it by working when I'm at home.

Right. I find that particularly we're a meeting. Because we are absolutely distributed, our teams are 100% distributed and they will never not be. Regardless of whether everybody's in an office somewhere, we are a distributed team, meaning people are in different offices. My meeting schedules are so packed.

What I find is on days when I'm in office, I cannot find a place to take meetings, right? And so there's this like real, that creates a whole productivity issue for me. I'm not saying again, that returning to the office doesn't have value. What I have yet to see, and I kind of don't believe in any fundamental way,

is that it is increasing productivity across the board for people. So there is actually like a ton of data on this. And like the thing is, now we've had like several years of this. You've seen like what people have done working from home or not working from home. And you could find studies that say either thing, that you're more productive, that you're less productive.

I think the smartest people studying this and like who've done the analysis on like these meta analysis of all these things have decided that like, as long as you've like, you go in person, like some of the time, and that could be like, maybe like once a quarter or something like that, just so you develop a sort of rapport, you know how to talk to people,

like they know that you're not, you know, just being such an asshole on Slack when you type a certain way. If you spend like, as long as you have that like little bit of a base, you could spend probably most of the rest of the time not together and it's just fine. The thing is with a lot of these studies, they don't even know what productivity is.

Like productivity is that like clicking on your computer more? Is it like coming up with like the next great idea? Like how do you measure that? Like so there's a lot of problems with the studies, but generally like, like if you're coming into the office, like some of the time it's probably fine.

Yeah. Are you saying the data does not support the being in the office more? I'm saying the data does not support that being in the office more? I'm saying the data does not support that being in the office makes you more productive. And in fact, um, Jack Reigns are my colleague, column columnist. Uh, he was, uh, writing about the, you know, Amazon making people going, go back to the office five times a week.

And was saying it's probably just like a way to do layoffs. That's less embarrassing. Well, this is, this has been a, I feel like there is this thing. I mean, companies have all kinds of techniques they use to like, when they're like, we gotta cut a few people. Like, is there a way we can do it? So it doesn't seem like we just- No snacks, come to the office five days a week. It's like, we just need a little bit of extra money,

but we don't wanna be like, oh, we're doing the layoffs cause it's like a thing. And then we're like, what if we just made the people who live like four hours away commute to the office and then they'll be like, I quit. Way. Like I talked to someone about this and he was like, yeah, the first thing that's going to happen is like for the people who this matters to, which is a lot of people,

especially if you have like on your kids or like, you know, someone you're taking care of, that sort of thing, pets, you know, if you like anything other than work, like this might matter to you. And like you're going gonna start looking for other places Right the rub is that they you know tech isn't at a high point right now It's not like there's tons and tons of hiring But like if you're working at Amazon you could get a job somewhere else like if you're left working at that level I and yeah, I guess I don't know. I mean I've never worked at Amazon so I can't speak to that

We can't there they could work here. Definitely you're saying and I don't know. I mean, I've never worked at Amazon, so I can't speak to that experience. They could work here, definitely. You're saying, I don't know. I think, well, I mean, I think as a business with an RTO policy, I think that if they're like, I want to work remote, that's scrutinized. And like, that is a fine, if you're like, if you're a business owner and you want to have it that way, totally fine.

I actually, for me, it's, I guess if they were like, you have to be in the office every single day. All the time, nine to five. It would present a lot of difficulties if there was no flexibility on that. I think we're lucky to be at a business that at least at the moment has been pretty flexible

with how they want people doing it. I just also think like, and this is from very like real personal experience, like what I was just talking about with the meeting rooms and stuff. Offices are not necessarily, especially modern offices, these open plan modern offices, I don't really think are designed for productivity

in a lot of ways. And, um, you know, I, I don't know. Like, I know there's been like a kind of bring back the cubicle sort of thing going on, but like in a way I feel like, yeah, but we're not doing that. I mean, people can't do that. It's would be very expensive. The kind of offices are not doing well. They're not bringing back the cubicle right now. Like the office real estate is not doing well because everyone's like, okay, we're gonna have this

even more open floor plan before screw COVID. Right. Pack them in there even more densely. And then like, yeah. I think, I mean, I don't think, again, I just wanna say, and not this, I don't think for a lot of people, this is not a big deal at all.

And a lot of people like going into the office. Sure. And I think it is, especially in places like New York, where people have like, often will have very small apartments or four roommates or whatever. 40 roommates, yeah. Like being able to go into an office and like not have to deal with that stuff

is actually great and being like out and moving around. I think actually that's one of the things that's, and this is you hear like Eric Adams talk about this stuff About the how you know detrimental remote work has been for like New York or whatever and I do think there is something to be said For yeah, like the financial district not doing well, but like neighborhoods doing pretty well Well, right I think there is something to be said for like there is a Contribution to like the kind of health of a city of having like this these recurring

a contribution to like the kind of health of a city of having like these recurring visitors come in, right? And patronize businesses and restaurants and things like that. I think that, and just essentially like be there, right? I think there is something to be said for that. But look, this stuff is evolving, you know? I mean, we're gonna, it's going to have to change. Like I don't, I think the future of work

is definitely not more linked to where you sit. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. I, I had this data set from, um, flex index, which is this company that, like, I think they survey like 9,000 different, like just actual companies about their office policies and they, you know, Amazon is actually, is doing the complete opposite of what the rest of the tech industry is doing. Like from 2023 to 2024, um, tech companies actually got more flexible.

Yeah. They are letting like a higher percentage of them in something. It's over 50% let people choose where they want to be. That could be choosing to go to the office, choosing to stay home, you know, a mix of somewhere in between. And like, the thing that shrank in that time was like full time in the office. So even from, you know, kind of like this post pandemic era, 2023 to 2024, that's going down. So it's like, they're, you know, it's a countervailing trend, I guess. Well, I mean,

you know, that's the thing about Amazon. They zig when everyone else is zagging. Well, they're also known as really abusive, hard ass work policies, right? That's like the thing about Amazon. I guess. What they actually do is when everybody else zags, they zag as well. They just get the zag cheaper and price it lower to compete with other people's zags. And has a bigger focus on the customer

or whatever their day one thing is. Yeah, I don't know what their day one thing is. But what I do know is that their business is largely predicated on like, or some part of their business is predicated on the insanely monopolistic practices, just one man's opinion. But it makes me think of something else to talk about. That's the whole like first week of Google's ad monopoly case. Right.

Yes, we're segueing into that. Are we done with Return to Office? I'm fine to leave it. I am happy to. Yeah, I think I'm done. I've said everything I need to say about that forever, as a matter of fact. If it comes back up, I think we can just

replay whatever I just said. Still stands. Be good enough. Yeah, Google. Google, are we still calling them enough. Yeah, Google Google are we still calling them Google Yeah, it is Well, the parent company's alphabet, but Google is I think what runs I'm pretty sure it has like an advertising business Like you should know this. This is an area of expertise Kind of just when you're doing the stock ticker, but like you know is the you know, they separated out that the other the

But like Google is the, you know, they separated out the other, the wild bets or whatever the thing is a long time ago. And now Google was like, when we were talking about Google, it's Google. Yeah. Headline Google under fire again for monopolistic practices. You know, the first week didn't seem to go well for them. They're weird. Yeah, weird. It was like, I don't know. didn't seem to go well for them. They're, um. That's weird.

Yeah, weird. Well, it's like, I don't know. I kind of, I'll tell you, like, I do find it really hard to understand their ad business exactly. I've read a lot about it. I've listened to podcasts about it. You find it hard to understand? Well, yeah, just it's like, they own every side of it.

Like, they own, they monopolize, like, the selling of the ads, the buying of the ads, and then the exchange itself. It's just like, when I get into the nitty gritty about like ad tech, I always find that a little, I don't know, hard to get. Well, it's, you know, it's not their fault. They simply had to. They had to.

I mean, I'm sure there is an argument that they're like, well, this didn't exist when we made it. Right. They made the monopoly to monopolize. Well they create, I mean, you might argue they created an unbelievable amount of prosperity and opportunity in a market that basically didn't exist, which was digital advertising. I don't really know how this works.

They certainly were a pioneer in digital advertising. They certainly were like, did things that nobody had ever thought to do. I mean, they invented programmatic, did they not? You know, does, and I don't know if everybody knows what programmatic advertising is. Maybe people don't, normal people who might be listening to this, not that anybody's listening to this is normal.

Is it a well known what programmatic advertising is? I think you should explain. I should explain it? Okay. Yeah. Programmatic advertising is like, you're like, hey, I have a slot on my page that can be, an ad can be injected into. And Google's like, cool, we have all these ads from all these different people and we match those ads to like audiences and prices and times and targets or

whatever. And so it's like an automated, it's like an automated system for ad placement, which is what you basically you see all over the internet and you can even do, you know Programmatic advertising that's specifically for an advertiser, but it is injected through usually 99 out of 100 times through Google's ad servers basically so they have like a market for the places where the ads go and they have a market for the people who are advertising and they have a market for the for the The placement of those ads in essence, right? Right, and the exchange itself. That's what I mean, the exchange.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, that's how advertising works now, which is why advertising is essentially worthless on the internet because I mean, Google has created this like huge ad industry of digital advertising, but in doing so, reduce the value of ads, like, of advertising to people, like, enormously.

Right. It's not like taking, I mean, it's not like it used to be where you'd take out an ad in a newspaper or a magazine or on TV, and it was like very costly and complicated. But it's also like they have no, they basically have no value. It's like pennies on the dollar.

I mean, you're like, I wanna advertise like my, you know, Porsche, like I'm Porsche, I want to advertise sports cars. You know, the values fluctuate depending on where you're putting them, but it's not like putting it in a magazine. And it might be just seen by a bunch of bots. You don't really know because Google controls every part of it and like, has like visibility where no one else does. And in the ad tech world, it's not just Google.

We should. I do want to talk about Google's monopoly, but I think it's worth noting that there is an enormous amount of ad technology that is adjacent to this programmatic sphere that has just, it's hard to explain how corrupted and corruptible the ecosystem is for advertising on the internet. You mentioned bots, there's all kinds of ways to guarantee views on things.

Everything's basically right, it's paid per view. It's actually paid per thousand views, how it's calculated, it's called a CPM. The ad tech world, there's all these other things. There's a whole thing called brand safety. I don't know if anybody, a normal person knows what brand safety is. Brand safety is a thing where they say,

they've created, and people have created software around this, which is an intermediary, which is like, if you're using this programmatic engine to place your ads, but the ads are about to appear on a page that has the word kill on it. It won't put the ad there because kill is a bad word or war. I had a, at a previous, at a previous job, I had a situation where there was a, a,

a brand safety block list implemented by the advertiser on the word war because they didn't want to be around any war content. They were advertising war between iPhone and Android. They're advertising a superhero action movie, I believe on a website that covered science fiction films and other science fiction related items. And they talk about Star Wars on there all the time. And so any post that we were writing about Star Wars on there all the time. And so any post that where we were writing about Star Wars,

the ads wouldn't appear. Oh, you know, very risk averse. The most germane to the advertiser that you could imagine because the software is so unbelievably bad and stupid. And the idea is so unbelievably bad and corrupt and stupid. And anyhow, the whole thing, I mean, if a normal person had to encounter

what I'm now explaining on a regular base, like if you had to encounter this on a regular basis, which is what in the whole thing, I mean, if a normal person had to encounter what I'm now explaining on a regular basis, like if you had to encounter this on a regular basis, which is what in the media industry, at least at my level as a person who's an executive in a media business, you would be so depressed all the time. You'd be so sad. No, no, yeah, I think that's part of my like, when I hear it, I'm like, ugh,

like it's just so hard for me to grok because it's boring and weird and yeah. It's boring, It's boring and it's terrible. And those are two. But, but you know, it's, it is, I mean, I have a complete, I mean, I could give you my grand unified theory of how Google's decisions about advertising have led to the misinformation crisis that we're currently in. I can tell you there's an entire lineage. There's a connection between the decision made 25 years ago about how to price advertising on the internet and what the system would. The dumb headlines I come up with. You know, and, and their model for their model for search and their model for SEO

and their model for advertising against that stuff has created, has, has been unbelievably detrimental to the progress of humanity, in my opinion, just one man's opinion. Also a big fan of Google as a company, by the way, I should say. Great products, great, excellent search is not so great anymore, but love Gmail, big fan of Gmail. Advertising sounds like you like that. I love their, I have no comment, but I love their, the docs and the sheets and the slides

products, incredible collaborative software. It's stuff anyway yet, it's it's a it's a shit show at the fuck factory as they say and And and no one's happy and it is a monopoly. I think right one thing that stood out like one of the evidence One piece of evidence like the DOJ was putting forth this week that like stood out to me of justice. Yes I don't know one piece of evidence like the DOJ was putting forth this week that like stood out to me. Department of Justice? Yes. Okay, I just want to make sure we're clear. What else? I want to clarify.

I don't know. Was that like after the exchange? Sorry. I'm sorry. For the exchange, there's a 20% fee, right? Google owns all sizes and then they also operate the exchange. They get 20% from the exchange. Apparently like there could be, there are competitor exchanges, but like, a competitor once charged

something like they went to like zero and still couldn't get any of the market share away from Google. Like, that's how much Google has its thumb on the, like on the scale here. Like, yeah, they're, they're using the argument is that they're using the other parts of their business to hold on to the fees they get from the exchange. And they're charging like double market rate generally. And like they've been able to do that for years. And for sure they have, the reliance on Google's product

has stifled or inhibited innovation in this space. There is, there are other. Right, everyone's there. So you just, you go to it. There are other ad tech companies, but I mean, it is like, it is like, you know, Google built the highways and you're just, you can put a car on it, but you know, that's, that's about, you can change the size of the cars or whatever you can, like, some can have trailers

and some don't, but at the end of the day, like you're not really gonna innovate on the road. Right, and, and there's also like, Google gets like a last look or something. Like if there is like an ad deal and they're like, well, actually we could pay another penny for that or we could give them another penny. I forget what it's called.

But it's like they get to decide at the last minute if that car could be there at all. Right. Right. Yeah. Which you know, like probably has pluses and minuses. But you know, I don't even know what would happen. I mean, it's hard to imagine what

would happen if Google's ad monopoly were in some way inhibited or broken up because there's so many industries built around it. All this ad tech stuff like this brand safety stuff, whatever, it's all about insertion. And it's all based on how you use Google's ad products. It's in some way connects up last mile, first mile, whatever it is.

So I mean, it'd be interesting to see that all just be completely exploded. Right, yeah, we're gonna be interested. We'll find out soon, like what, soon. I don't know how fast these cases come around, but like for the search monopoly thing, I guess there's the remedy comes for that afterwards, like whether they're gonna break them up,

whether they're just gonna say, you know, you can't be on iPhones. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, it's something I think and I don't want to get this number wrong and I probably will, but I recently read or heard somewhere. This is so fucking misinformation here. This is like classic. I'm gonna backtrack you live.

That something like like 80% of the advertising you see on the internet is programmatic, meaning like there used to be there are deals that are direct, like we've done deals like that. People do deals where it's a direct relationship between now they still get served through Google's ad tools usually because that's what everybody uses. But like where it's like a direct deal where it's like, Hey, I want to put an ad on your thing and I'm going to give you money for it. And we're like, okay, let's get that ad over here.

But but I think some huge percentage of the deals had, do you have a fact check for me, if you'll give me an honest? I have a fact check for you, but I also did it in ChatGBT, so it could just be wrong. You're absolutely right. Wow, what? According to the drop in.

What does ChatGBT say? Yeah, it said 85%. And then a line later, it says, in 2021, it's 90% of digital display ads in the US were purchased programmatically. But then it doesn't give me any like sources to go check this one. So I'll take it. This is what's great about chat.

GPT is that it usually gives you what you're looking for, whether it's correct or not. But it makes you feel so like, what's the word like? Because it says it in such natural language, I'm like, oh, that makes sense. And like, yeah, like I feel like it. When you look up something on Google and you're kind of like going through a bunch of different sentences, a bunch of different websites, you're never like as certain as you are when someone tells you like a one sentence answer. Yeah, you're right. Um, so I think it, it actually like, it stops people from being curious and it shouldn't. Chad GBT is the, I heard of like search.

It's the guy told me or I saw something. This is what I just did where I was like, I saw something or I heard from somebody. Chad GBT is literally like the digital embodiment of like, yeah, like I think that's like, hey, like you just said, like what's the source? Does it source it? No, no, it does not source it.

There's no links. There's no link. It sounds like according to this website, which would be great. And then you click on it and then you read through. It does not say that. Okay. I mean, I think, I think it is like, that is like, like actually, and I hate to give Google credit on search because it's such a mess right now, but you're to your point.

One of the benefits of search as it exists is that you still have to parse information on your own. You still have to look at things and go, is this or is this not? Yeah, you have to use your brain a little bit. Right. And... Oh, here. I found a e-marketer link. Ooh, okay. Programmatic advertising will make up the lion's share, 91% of US digital display advertising

in 2024. Is that equivalent to what you were saying? I hope everybody's listening. That's what real reporting looks like right there. Ronnie. Typing stuff in Google and going to a trusted source. She didn't stop at Chad GPT. She said, what is the e-marketer website saying? Anyway, yeah.

But so the antitrust case is you think is looking bad for them so far? Yeah, I mean, obviously, so, so, so the antitrust case is, is, uh, you think is looking bad for them so far. Oh yeah. I mean, obviously like it's looking bad because like the DOJ is putting forth their case this week and the next one of justice. Yeah. The department of justice is like the case against them is being made.

So like it's inherently going to look bad for them, but it just seems very convincing to me, especially like, yeah, that, yeah. I mean, we'll have to follow that closely, but the problem in America is that we've discussed, I think we discussed this last week or maybe I'm just imagining things. Um, we certainly have discussed like, uh, the monopoly, it Googles monopoly and others. And it's like, what do we really do to solve them? And it's not, it doesn't, it doesn't actually feel like we're doing things that have meaningful impact on, you know,

reducing their ability to hold a monopoly on something. So I guess we have to see what the remedy is, like how they decide to, what they decide to do with them or whether it's like a, you know, a lip, a risk, that's what I was going. Risk, risk, slap on the wrist,ap on the wrist. Could just be lip service that they're paying us. Both those would work. I don't know. At any rate, I think we can both agree that,

we can all agree that probably nothing meaningful will change about the state of humanity. That's so pessimistic. Should we talk about, actually we were talking about Chad GBT, there's a new Chad GBT update this week. Right, the strawberry, the reasoning one? I don't know. I'm counting ours and strawberry AI.

The chat. GBT discourse is getting to like early crypto levels of discourse. Like, or not even early, like late it's actually mid stage crypto where there are these people who are like all in on this, on this technology. And they're like, Sam Altman is the Messiah and Chad GPT and these other things, Claude and whatever, whatever the perplexity. It's like, these are all just like, this is it. This is the technology that the entire world is going to be based on any moment. And the stuff they're talking about, I'm not saying it's not real. It is real. These are real things, but they're in like,

it's like when I was just talking about programmatic advertising and it's like, who needs to know this only like people who are deeply enmeshed in the, or immersed in the ad world need to know how this stuff operates. This is to me, is talking about like them putting out new models and being like, this is this person. And they're talking about like these like thought credits and these like, you know, people are getting warnings

and all that. And it's like, it's like, this is the edge edge, super duper edge case user who are like, you know, poking the bear to see, you know, like I, I follow people on, on Twitter and also Twitter. Now, if you look at any, uh, if you look at like AI content, you know, immediately on your for you page, which is the bane of all social media now is the for you page. Yeah. And I can talk about that for a minute if you want, but, um, the, the,

it's like, it'll just start serving you all of this AI stuff. And it's like these AI AI like sycophants, like these like AI fanatics who don't sound like they're talking about things that matter in reality. Like they really, and this to me was like a lot of the crypto people are like talking about stuff that is like, I'm sure interesting. Well, they're the same people, right?

There was a one-to-one pivot of like the guy who was really into like NFTs and the guy who's really into AI. They're like the people who were like the COVID people who were like doing the statistics. They were like the- Oh yeah, the armchair epidemiologists. Yeah, the armchair experts who like,

who had to pivot after COVID stopped being such a huge thing into like some other, then they started talking about like, you know, monkeypox or M pox or whatever. They're like, now they're an expert on that, infectious disease. And they're just like guys. They're just like people. Exclusively men actually.

Exclusively men who are like, I could turn my mansplaining into a career now because everybody's stuck at home and they have to listen to me. Anyway, yes. So the stuff, everybody's talking about this new the new chat, GBT stuff, and I'm like, I'm sure it's interesting. To someone, but it seems irrelevant to I mean, it's cool that your it's interesting to someone, but it seems irrelevant to, I mean, it's cool that your beta software is improving. Like I'm happy for them.

I'm happy for Sam Altman, who I worry about all the time. Why do you worry about him? I just worry if he's doing okay. Because he puts himself out there so much. I worry, you know, is he working too hard? Is he eating okay? Is he taking time off to relax? I guarantee he's not thinking that about us.

I want to protect Sam Altman at all costs. I'm always telling people all the time. And it's like, hey, check it out. Our new model can do this thing. And it's like, that's so cool guys. Great job on the software. Um, just from a, again, from a practical perspective, it's like, it's cool that it can, it's like reasoning now or whatever.

And I'm excited for, yeah, I would put big quotes around reasoning. Whatever it's not, it's software. It's not reasoning. It's not a brain that's thinking. It's like, it is a piece of software and it's getting slightly more sophisticated and people are like, this is it folks. And it's like, it's not it. It's not it. I'm not saying that AI is not going to be interesting and important at some point in that it isn't already being implemented in ways that are cool and interesting. I just like, so anyhow, then the

people who are talking about it really turned me off. It's a real turnoff to watch them talk about it because it's like, it makes me hate it. Yeah, you guys aren't really talking about things that matter to humans, like human beings. Like these are not. And it almost feels like the act of talking about it and the act of like pumping it up and like making it a big deal. Like it's a thing in and of itself

rather than like talking about the thing. If it were, then you would just be like, oh, it does this cool thing, done, end of story. I bet I could find if I look at my Twitter for you page right now, but I could find a tweet that's exactly like the one that I'm talking about. While you look that up, I just looked up a chat tpt, how many Rs there are in strawberry because this is like the thing that everyone keeps doing. Does it figure it out?

Uh, no, no, there's it says two. And this I'm using four point or four oh, So like, obviously I'm not at the, the, the upper limit of it's a reasoning, but it's still like, come on. Uh, you're saying it doesn't know how many hours there are in strawberry. Yeah. It's like notoriously bad at like counting things. Yeah, that's good stuff. Cause it doesn't know anything. I'll be honest with you. I'm not actually, I'm actually not seeing.

I thought you were going to be like, I don't know how many ours are in strawberry. Maybe they've cleaned up my for you page. Um, God, it's bad. Wait, are you on Instagram or Twitter? What are we doing? Twitter. Everybody has a for you page. It doesn't matter where I am. Yeah. Do you understand? Because what is, um, Minor on my for you page, it's always Elon Musk posts, posts from like a day ago on Twitter. Yeah.

It's a atheism left an empty space. Secular religion took its place. Oh God. He's made me write a poem, but left the people in despair. Who is this that you're reading? Childless hedonism, sans care. Maybe religion's not so bad to keep you from being sad. That's an Elon Musk original No, I'm like your page. He wrote poetry Elon Musk. Yes, the CEO of acts. Yeah, I just got dumber His postings bad I don't want to talk about this again cuz we already talked about okay I literally can't find one of these it's like maybe I don't know maybe maybe maybe it's listening the AI is listening And it doesn't want to share its secrets. It's like, maybe, I don't know, maybe it's listening. The AI is listening. And it doesn't want to share its secrets with me.

So you have like a really good free page right now? Or like a germane one? No, it's horrible. And I will say this. And I will say this. No, the absolute scourge of the internet, the absolute ruination of the internet as we know it and its usefulness and functionality, certainly among social networks,

but in many ways that this particular train of thought has spread to many parts of the internet is the algorithmic guessing game that has been forced into our initial view of almost everything that we use now. And this, I cannot think of anything more destructive to like the flow of useful information than this feed, which is algorithmically determined to keep you focused

on things no matter what's in there, no matter how important or useful it is to you or how much you wanna see it, it's entire concept. And I see this on Twitter, I think about it on Twitter all the time, because it didn't used to have it. And it's gotten worse lately, yeah. But it's like, I'll see things on there and I'm like, I hate this on Twitter. I think about it on Twitter all the time because it didn't used to have it. And it's gotten worse lately. Yeah, but.

But it's like, I'll see things on there and I'm like, I hate this person. I don't care what they have to say. I'm not interested in this video. And yet I do stop because it is like something outrageous or stupid or whatever. And it is this like this brain hacking that they have done with our attention.

It's not just that it's like, oh, you want to like sell me an ad against this or whatever. It's that I don't even remember why I was there in the first place. Like, I don't even remember what I was trying to find or what I wanted to see on the social network to begin with. And I think, like, I can't think of anything that's been more clearly outwardly destructive to both the idea of a social network, which is like communication between people in some format, right? Like Twitter or Instagram or even Tiktok to

something about like we're communicating with one another in some way, but you can't really have a you can't have a linear piece of communication with somebody when it's like you're just constantly being served something that will keep you distracted. I mean, Facebook does the same thing. like you're just constantly being served something that will keep you distracted. I mean, Facebook does the same thing and yeah, I could go on. Well, no, it's just, and then, and then all of those feeds are curated and, and, and, uh, massaged into whatever that particular social network thinks is like acceptable and or attention grabbing. So they're just a,

it's just an unbelievable perversion of what human beings actually need or want from these things. It is literally like, well, if we keep, you know, if like, yeah, you wanna watch TV, but what if we keep the change in the channel and we show you like a few seconds of each show? Right, it's optimizing so you're there for the longest time, not so you're having the best time.

Right, exactly. And so you're there for the longest time, not so you're having the best time. Right, exactly. And it's just, and it is just like increasingly I see it in every surface that I look at on every surface that I look at, I see these like algorithmically, you know, for you feeds and they feel so, I feel so disconnected from them. They feel so dead to me. They feel so much like what somebody at that company needs its customers to look at and so much less about like what is actually good and useful for me as a person

and what is actually good and useful about the way that social network was designed. I mean, I do think we are at the end. We are at the tail end, we are getting to, or at least the beginning of the end, maybe not the tail, but the beginning of like the social network usefulness as we know it. Like I really, I don't think the idea of Twitter

and Instagram and even TikTok to some extent is a sustainable idea at this point. I don't know that it has the kind of staying power that it needs to have given the fact that it is, everything is the most cynical they are it's predicated on the most cynical way of addressing its user which is like we just will do fucking anything to get you to stay here will do anything to get you to pay attention to something will show you anything we think would be even remotely interesting

for a few seconds of your time and then as quickly as possible get you to the next one and that's all we're going to do And that's all we're gonna do. That's all we wanna do with you. And it's like these super odd repercussions or I was talking last week about how like I was saying on Instagram, I only look at things I hate. And like, that's a weird thing to do, right? Like, I see, I mean, on Twitter in particular,

or yeah, just trolling people on Twitter and that sort of stuff. It's been serving me like straight, like right wing Nazi stuff. Like it's been serving me and I, like right wing Nazi stuff. Like it's been serving me and I'm not clicking on like political posts there. I'm really not. I've disengaged with a ton of that stuff. Um, partially cause it's gotten so bad and so, so weirdly, you know, it's, there's so

many weird Nazis and reply guys and like Musk fanboys and stuff. But it's like serving me stuff. Like one of the first things I saw the other day was this guy retweeting a Christopher Ruffo like evidence of the people eating pets. And it's like, and I stopped because I'm like, huh? Like, what is this? Oh, this must be like something important.

But I know this guy's full of shit, but maybe he got something. And then I'm sitting there watching, I'm like, this is shit. This is, this is garbage. And this person is garbage. And the person who retweeted them is garbage. And I never ever would have wanted to see this, right?

But he got pushed into my, the thing that I saw when I first opened the app. And it's like, and that's the, it's the same, it's the same thing on, on, on, on Facebook. And it's the same thing on Instagram and, and, and tick tock to some degree though, like, you know, tick tock, maybe it's because of how I use it or my value that I place in the content. I don't see. I don't see a lot of things that I'm

like, I don't want to see this. Like, when I use tick tock, I don't get a lot of wow, this is offensive to me. Or this is like, I, this is just like click bait or this is, it means the stuff feels a little bit more like things I actually want to see, which to their credit might be they've just got a better algorithm or maybe they have better content. Right. Yeah.

Or maybe they're not doing it, like not optimizing for the most cynical thing. Yeah, like threads. Somewhat related though. I just, I just saw that a Wall Street Journal reporter tracked down the person who did reported a cat missing and was like, you know, gaming Haitian people. They're cooking the cat or whatever. Yeah, she was the one who filed this police report that like then the Republicans were like, this is, you know, this is it. This is, you know, this is proof. They tracked her down. The cat was in her own basement.

Yeah, she found out like two days later, you know, just. I mean, this is this is this is. Good report. Yeah, it's great reporting, but this is like, yeah, we're living in a world of we're talking about the the the the pets again, you know, because we're in the we're in the for you world. This is the that's a perfect for you page story. You know, that is like a perfect, like what?

They're eating cats? Like I love animals. No, it's right. Well, I get like, you look at one, I mean, on Instagram, you look at one cute dog video and you're cooked. Like, forget it. Like you're not gonna, you're not gonna stop getting like a video of a, you know,

like a hamster who cooks or something, you know, like a hamster who cooks or something, you know, like a skateboarding Rottweiler, you know, or a, or a dog and a cow that became best friends. I mean, this honestly, it's pretty good stuff, but I want to hear my, my latest thing I was advertised on Instagram. I don't know after our Wiki feed conversation last week. This one's a little better. I was like, there's like this retreat in the middle of like maybe some South American country,

just like beautiful in the middle of the rainforest. And it's like, you know, get away from it all, detox from like the internet. I was like, that sounds good. It was like, eat great food, exercise. I was like, sure, sure, sure. No women, no distractions. No, shut up.

Are you serious? Yeah, serious. I got like a health retreat. I was like, no women, no distractions. Shut up. Are you serious? Yeah, serious. I got like a health retreat. I was like, no, no distractions. No distractions. No temptations. Is that what it's that? Is it a religious thing or is it?

No, it's not. It's definitely like a. Men's rights. It's like it's kind of like maybe halfway between like Joe Rogan and Jack Dorsey. Could it just be a gay thing? Not a gay thing. No, no, no, no, no. Very straight.

Very straight. We're working out together and we're not no, no. Very straight. Very straight. We're working out together and we're not gay. Very, um. Straight guys all together alone. Living their best life. Drinking and eating well. No, no, no.

Probably no alcohol. Maybe some like ayahuasca, but no like no alcohol. No internet. The worst trip. I know, I know. It started out good and then I was like, oh, well first of all. No drinking, no women. First of all, I'm not allowed.

No internet connection probably. You just, just a guy on his laptop, like writing his novel and like working out. I was like, ooh. Writing your novel and working out, you know. That's what it looked like. You do hear all the time about great authors being also super cut.

That's one of the things I always think about. Do you hear that? No, that was sarcasm. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's a, it's a comedic, the brain worms are eating. Uh, no, I think it's the idea that I'm like, yeah, I gotta write, I gotta write 1500 words in my novel today. And then, and then I got to, you know, press 250 or whatever.

Right. Right. Can you, is that even a thing pressing 250? I don't even know what that means. Not for us. Is that a bench press? Yeah. Yeah. Is that someone's lifting 250 pounds? One could, yeah.

On a bench. Plenty of people could do that. Like, yeah, sure. I could. People do their body weight and more. My arms would snap off of. Yeah. I can't. I attempted that, which is great, which is fine by me. I don't need to, you know, I don't need to. Hold on a second. What were we actually talking about? Oh, God, I don't know. Not the for you page. The your bad ads on Instagram. Yeah, I don't know. I get, I get I get Instagram is is is like let me see let me open up

You're still looking at ads like a person and I'm looking at it like, you know, like a hateful. Let's see, you know bottom-dweller Let's see what I get here. It's gonna be something insane It's my first ad real ad here's his ock. Oh, he's got his arm on fire. He's doing something Okay, he's doing stunts. God. I think Zoc is, he's, he's, it's, he's gone too far. He's taken it too far. That wasn't an ad by the way. I just follow him now because he wore that jacket that one time that I thought looked pretty cool. I'm just like waiting to scrolling to see something that says ad.

I'm not getting anything here. I don't have any ads. I guess it's because I'm, uh, I got a blue check. Oh, here we go. What is this? Suggested for you. I know this is a cute animal video. That's nice. This is not this is spawn. Not spawn.

Yeah, I'm just seeing that the world's ending. No ads. What's going on here? Maybe I'm exempt. It was suggested for you. Tomatoes. No, this isn't an ad. For you is not an ad.

Yeah, it's not going to get on desktop. I for you is not an ad. It's not on desktop. I don't normally look at Instagram. I'm not on desktop. I'm looking on my phone right now. This is great. By the way, great podcast content. No one cares. I think people are I think that I think that I think the world's

been hungry for a podcast where two people barely talk and just look at Instagram on their phone. I think we've been I think the world's been crying out. There's been a space. There needs to be a video podcast so like I could just show you my bad ads. There's been a space in the, in the, in the, uh, in the world for a podcast that just where people are not really very engaged with the podcast aspect. It's just like, I'm actually doing some work on the side. I'm like writing an article and not listening to you.

I gotta tell you, there's some really distracting stuff on Instagram right now. I put it down. Put it down. Not a single ad though. Not a single fucking ad. I'm getting a lot of animal videos less suggested. I guess this begs the question, you know, what is an ad? You know What is what is an ad what counts is advertising? You know something more someone's making money They're selling something and they're making presumably everybody on everybody. Everybody on everybody on Instagram is selling something like an influencer. Just like selling supplements.

They might be selling a fantasy. They might be selling themselves. They may be selling a vision or a version of their life that they want you to believe exists like my all-man retreat Instagram no, that's an actual red bull Suggested for me. This is not an ad. I mean, it's an ad they're selling red bull. This is pretty cool Actually, this guy's biking on a train. That's pretty interesting They're selling they're selling red bull. They want me to drink a red bull and honestly don't drink the red bull

I might drink a red bull and because I haven't had a heart palpitation in a long time. And I was thinking, what if I had a little like a little micro heart attack, you know, because it's been a while. I think people drink. There's just a totally out there that I just think people drink way too many of those like, like energy drinks. I was like, that's when you see, you ever see like a can thrown out of the car, like onto the road, someone littering. It's always like an energy drink. I was like, that's when you see, have you ever seen like a can thrown out of a car,

like onto the road, someone littering, it's always like an energy drink. I'm like, wow, people drinking so many energy drinks. That really tracks with somebody who'd throw litter out of a car window. Yeah, it's always gonna be like monster. I have to tell you something, you know, like these days,

like you have to be really careful. Like if you're getting like pills or any kind of powder drug or whatever, you know, street drugs, you get a fentanyl in it, which is really deadly. You know, like if you're, if you're getting like pills or any kind of powder drug or whatever, you know, street drugs, you get a fentanyl in it, which is really deadly. You know, like people are really, you know, even like I told Zelda, she's 10 years old. I'm like, if anybody ever offers you, you know, the pill or powder, anything like here's a fentanyl test. Don't don't yeah. Here's a little tab. Just dip that on in there and see if the pH checks out. No, I'm like, don't do that. Good advice. You know, no, I'm like, if it's, you know,

if it's like, you know, if the joint just smoke up, no problem. But can of beer, go ahead, chug that thing. But if it's a powder of any type, to me, five hour energy is that. When I see a five, I think if I drink, I don't know what would happen if I drink a five hour energy. I don't know what's in five hour energy

and I don't think I want to find out. And I say this as a person who's experimented with a little bit of everything. I don't, I don't feel like five hour energy will have a positive effect on my body. Yeah. And it's only okay if you mix it with alcohol and like for loco and then it like counters out and then no, that sounds not good. That sounds even worse. You're like, Oh, it's like a speedball, you know I don't want a five-hour energy speedball. I have to try legal now right for legal for loco was always been illegal For loco is off the market I think but they just have like a different version of it now or is it like I don't know what they do that sounds like more about this than I do to be honest with you

But yeah, I remember drinking them and then I remember not drinking them. I saw a thing, two things. I don't wanna be like a boomer, but two things. I saw, speaking of distracting bullshit that I don't care about on my first tab in Twitter. I saw a video of kids doing Whippets in, um, in a school room, but, but they're not calling them, they're not calling them Whippets anymore. They're called galaxy gas.

This is a brand. It's a brand. It's called galaxy gas. And like, they're not doing it. I have a whipped cream container. It's like something else. Every day, they have flavors and everybody in the comments is? It's like something else. They have flavors. And everybody in the comments is like, this is an epidemic.

And I'm like, this is the first I'm hearing about Galaxy Gas. Seems not great. Yeah, I don't do it. It kind of checks out. But also like everybody I knew since the time I was 15 was constantly doing Whippets. And maybe that just says something to the caliber of the people that I was hanging out with.

But then also I was at a school, like parent teacher night at school last night. And they were like talking about devices. Oh yeah. And it was a big topic. It depends on like age of your kid, right? If they're younger kids. This is third, fourth and fifth is the school.

It's just those three grades. Does she have a device at school? She has a watch, an Apple watch, and an iPhone, which she was like, everybody's got one. And I'm like, maybe when you start fifth grade, and she honestly, and I gotta say, I'm impressed, got her an iPhone. She doesn't even charge it or use it at all.

Like she kind of doesn't seem to care, which is like, I'm like, why do we get her this iPhone? That was a mistake, which is another different problem to have, but I'm like, okay, she of doesn't seem to care, which is like, I'm like, why do we get her this iPhone? That was a mistake, which is another different problem to have. But I'm like, okay, she really doesn't seem highly susceptible to like needing to be. Well, this is the thing though, at this orientation, they were like, look, we know it's a major issue.

Your kids bringing these devices to school, they wanna take them out, they're very disruptive. They gotta keep them in their backpacks or not bring them at all. It's like, if we see them with it in the classroom, you'll get a warning. It's like all this, I'm like, is this happening? Like it seems like a little bit of a panic

because I'm like, I, I, I. You're also going from an N of one, your kid doesn't care about it. Maybe other kids do. Like I've heard it sounds like it's maybe like a big deal. In fifth grade? I don't know. Okay.

They were like two different sessions on like the devices in schools, okay? And so they're no, you have to put it away, it has to be in your locker sort of thing. You gotta keep this under control. And by the way, I agree. I don't think there should be any devices. I think the reason we originally got Zelda

the Apple Watch is like we can track her location and in a situation where like we can't find her, we're picking her up or whatever, we can like, there's a way to communicate with her. I think the watch has the school mode, you can put it on where you can't, it just tells the time. I think that's a completely acceptable.

I don't know that like anybody in fifth grade needs a phone, but I do understand why people would want to give kids a phone, especially in America. I can think of lots of different reasons why a kid would want a phone. Terrifying. No, we have the worst reasons for wanting to equip kids In America, I can think of lots of different reasons why a kid would want a terrifying. No, we have the worst reasons for wanting to equip kids with a tracking device. OK, it's not because we want to know what they're up to.

There's like they're like you want to know that they're safe. They're not like, yeah, they're not smoking a joint under the bleachers. I wish our problems in America were that were that like, oh, we got to find out if they're like, you know, stealing from the candy shop or something or whatever kids used to do. I'm going to segue out of this in that I want to talk about my favorite person in the world, Elon Musk. Elon Musk, the guy who owns Twitter where X was tweeting bad tweets this week, he was wondering aloud innocently,

how come no one's tried to assassinate the Democratic presidential candidates? That's a good question. Are we saying? Is it a good question? We should make a, this should just be an ongoing segment on the show where we just. Like what has he tweeted?

We have to just check in on whatever his latest worst tweet is. Okay, this was his latest worst tweet. He actually, he's so bad. We should make a bracket. We should make like a final four, I don't actually know if that's a thing. I don't know what it is.

Oh, at the end of the year, like just like the worst tweets. Yeah, yeah, we should do a bracket of actually like really starting at some point we should poll like which tweet and then each week I want to vote on which one was worse. This one he did last week or the one we think is the bad tweet this week? They're all bad. No, I know. Yeah, they're all, yeah, they're all bad. That's a good competition.

But like which one is the worst? Right. This week? Yeah. You know, which one is the worst? Right. Yeah. You know, this one where he's like, you know, putting targets on people's heads. Like, John Keegan went and saw how much like, you know, the guy who's saying these awful things,

who's probably getting a visit from the Secret Service, who then deleted his tweet. Like, it was so bad that he actually deleted it and was like, who deleted it? Elon Musk tweeted it. And then he deleted it. And he was like, it was really funny when I told my friends about it, everyone was laughing

and you're like, yeah, sure. Who did you talk? What? Yes, men were like laughing at this. So he deleted his tweet. But he also has like tons of contracts with the government. John Keegan, sure would pull that up. It was a like $18 billion of contracts with like just SpaceX alone for just, you know, helping launch satellites for ferrying, you know, astronauts and stuff up to the space station. Like maybe he shouldn't, shouldn't say things like that. Like, I mean, more careful. I mean, like I saw something today. I mean, one of you,

maybe one of you, one of you, one of you writers, one of you underlings, editorial staffers, put it into Slack. That was like, I was like, just him going up and I'm like, what, what is this? What did he do? I forgot what he's like, it's like, it's like some Doge account that he constantly retweets going like, they're gonna, they're gonna shut down X and lock up Elon Musk as soon as Harrison Walton office. I'm sure that's like the first thing

they're thinking about is him. He's like, yup. And it's like, dude, you wish, you wish that you rose to the level of needing to be arrested for something. It's so manufactured. It's also like, what is this? What is this?

Like, what is this? What is this? Like what is the? Is he just trying to get clicks on Twitter, is that what it is? Is it just that I mean by by positing that he's like, you know Like the target number one of like the president of the United States and sound makes him sound a lot more important than he is Right and like there was a headline last week that I thought It's just I was gonna say go ahead. Let me hear the headline. Oh the there was a headline last week that I thought it was just, I was going to say, go ahead. Let me hear the headline. Oh, the headline was a Musk's ex deemed too small for EU crackdown on big techs power,

which I thought was like such a zing. That's the great one of the greatest trolls of all time. But like the discourse is so bad. His output is so astronomically stupid and perfect way to describe it for him. Actually, just like, like his, his vision to go to Mars is, is only eclipsed in size and grandeur by his, by how bad his tweets are. You know, it's like, it's like, I don't know, I don't want to keep saying the same thing. We have to do the bracket.

We've got to do the bracket because I think the only way to really know what the worst of all of his social media posts are is to create essentially like a sports bracket. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. And I don't know at what point we want to start. I mean, we could do it for all of 2024 though. It feels like that's a lot.

Do we have to bring them up on the episode or is this like, we just come up with a bracket and go through a bunch of his tweets? I don't know. I'm excited to be figuring out how these episodes are going to be in real time with the listener just on the horn right now. I don't know. I think we should start with like, what was the bad tweet last week and just go from there?

And what's the bad tweet this week that we've discovered? The bad tweet this week was nobody's trying to kill Kamala and walls, right? That's the. Yeah, like how come? Yeah, weird. That's the tweet from this week. What was his bad tweet last week that we talked about?

Oh God, I can't even remember. Exactly, you can't remember. Oh, he said, okay, I'll give you a baby and protect your cat or something. Right, he was like, he did that really rapey tweet to Taylor Swift, she endorsed Kamala Harris. And was like, yeah. Well, if this is so, then how's the bracket work?

Now we put those up against each other. All right, so, okay, so it's either threatening to impregnate a woman you've never met. Hold on, let's be clear, he didn't threaten to impregnate. He just said he would. What was the exact text of this? It was like, okay, Taylor, it's like, fine, I'll give you a baby. Ew, ew, just gross stuff from a grown person. It was fine, Taylor, you win, I will give you a child.

So I will give you a child. Maybe he means he's got a lot of extras and he can just hand one off. At least a dozen kids. Here you go. What's this one named? I don't know. Take this one.

Did you see that nugget from the new Twitter book, the character limit that he was having kids with grimes and she had picked out a baby name for the daughter and then he gave it to his mistress's daughter that he had at the same time. Wow. Like, yeah, and then Grimes wrote a song about it or something, I don't know.

Well, you know, listen, he's on the spectrum, okay, Ronnie? Have a little bit of sympathy. It's not his fault, exactly. Imagine giving away, I don't know, just like, they have so many kids that you just like, are like, yeah, yeah, take that name. I heard it somewhere. We should have the character limit writers on the show, actually, be a good interview to do.

Maybe we could get them for next week. This is an aside. Character Limit is an incredible title for a book about Elon Musk and Twitter. It is incredible. Amazing. Whoever's responsible for that, yes. Chef's Kiss is the head of this. Chef's Kiss, that was a Chef's Kiss of the headline.

That was the Chef's Kiss. It works on so many levels, it's truly incredible. I think we should wrap up, we should do our feature or bug, our famous feature or bug segment. Do you have any feature or bugs from our show today? The office. The offices, conceptually?

Yeah. Our offices, because we did talk about RTO, a feature or bug? Wow. I mean, I think before the advent of the ability to work remotely, absolutely a feature. Right. It feels like they have degraded to something of a bug.

Yeah. I would say something similar. For a while, it was like the Google headquarters. That was like the draw. You had this amazing office that you had to go to. All this food and stuff. Yeah. Stuff was free.

They do your laundry. You get a massage. Oh, that sounds great. That sounds nice. It sounds really nice, except now it's like, yeah, stuff was free. They do your laundry, you get a massage. Oh, that sounds great. That sounds nice. It sounds really nice, except now it's like, but you have to commute like two hours. And also they got rid of a lot of the snacks. So it's like the office has gotten less good as well.

I will say this in defense of the office, our office culture, we have great lunches. Like every day, they have like a nice lunch. it is a, it is, that is a feature. I mean, for me, especially because I'm like, if I'm there, I never, ever leave time to like actually go get food or something and just like having like a nice spread of food to eat is great. Right. But I think overall as far as your, your nutrition, but like from feature for me,

as far as like getting like any work done for me as a person who loves to chomp on delicious food Yeah, but like me and me as a person who wants to get like write an article. I can't like get anything done there No, they've begun the office for information workers in particular. I think offices have be often have become turned into a bug. I think I think that there are absolutely Situations where being together, I mean, it is terrific to talk to somebody in person. It is tremendous when you need to speak to somebody. It is such a pleasure to have a real time in person conversation.

I'm so allergic to Zoom, like to this thing. I hate it. I hate doing it. But then again, I don't love meetings, you know? And like we have, I mean, I would say like the bigger bug within offices is meeting culture. I would say like offices would be more pleasant and easier to navigate and less of a bug

if the meeting culture of modern companies was different. I find that like we are living in a world of like meeting culture. Yeah, way too many meetings. Where you're not working, you're talking about work a lot of the time. And I think maybe I say this like, because I'm at a level where I have to be in a lot of like, Very important. meetings, very important, extremely high level, major decision making, you know, stuff that

will could decide the fate of Humanity. of humanity and beyond whatever comes after humanity or whatever comes next. Anyway, so office generally speaking, I think used to be a feature now and used to be a feature now about. Yeah, I hate to agree. Next. What else we got? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, targeted advertising. Oh, yeah, I would definitely say bug, but that's because it does not work for me. It is, I mean, only it's like a feature in the sense that it's very entertaining. It's a bug in the sense that like, why is this happening?

And why, how did I get to this part of the bowels of the internet? I have to say, I think it's a feature. It feels, I mean, I don't know. Like, let's just say we accept that advertising is going to be a part of how the internet functions, how things are monetized on the internet. I mean, no one's come up with a better idea. Like no one has a better idea, including the biggest technology companies in the world.

Like Facebook doesn't have a better idea than advertising. And they're one of the biggest, Amazon's huge burgeoning part of its business is advertising. Like I think targeted advertising is ultimately very useful. I think you could make, I consider it to be a feature. I think you could make an argument that it's invasive or, you know, but there's always been some form of targeting. It's just now we can target down to like the individual.

The micro level, yeah. I mean, there was always like, you know, you're like, you want to, you know, you're, you're like, hey, I want to advertise to men who are in the looking for cologne or whatever. And you're like, cool. Well, we'll put it in GQ magazines. The demographic of their readership is, you know, men who can afford cologne or whatever men with, you know,

white collar jobs, like some shit like that. So, so there's always been some form of targeting. It's just that we've gotten better and better at it. And I think in some ways that is a positive for the consumer. But maybe it's- Yeah, it's like we're all getting different stuff. And it's like, it's like breaking up like what our cohesion about like information is,

like whether we're all hearing or seeing the same thing. I don't know, bug. I'm calling it, I'm calling it. You're saying a bug, I'm calling it a feature. And we're just gonna have to agree to disagree on that. Okay, we got one more. Devices in schools, what do you think? Feature or bug?

Ooh, I think ultimately 90% bug. Like bug. Yeah. A bug, a huge bug. Yeah, yeah, you should be doing other stuff. And for many reasons, like a bug because like, you know, I'm like, my initial thought was like, I like, we need to be able to contact Zelda if there's like a school shooter, basically, you know,

that was like my, one of my early thoughts about should I get her a watch? Which is I need, I wanna be able to track her location and get, and be able to contact her. And it's like, that's the worst, the most buggy of all of the possible bugs you could imagine in the world. Which is like iron. Right, and that's like the good reason for having it.

That's like the positive, yeah, you could defeat, you'd be like, well, that's a feature that you can give the kid a watch. And it's like, yeah, sure, on a micro level, you could be like within that interaction of the tension there, you could go, well, that's a good thing, but the bigger whole situation is horrible, horrible, unbelievable bug for not just for the device question, but for schools in America, for like our sanity, for the political system

here for like the, the, the, the, the power of, you know, money, the influence of money in politics and how destructive it's been. Just bug after bug after bug layered on one another so that the system is so crafty and dysfunctional that we think a good solution is to give somebody a watch to track them. A child, a watch to track them. So that one, I think we can agree on. Yeah, I think it's a slam slam dunk, slam dunk, slam dunk for the end of the empire. It's a just absolute yeah, you know, alley oop or whatever. Yeah. Is that a thing? That's a thing. Alley oop. That's a type of basketball move. That's like a sport word. I think it's when you are. It's I want to say someone sets up a basketball and you someone throws the ball to a person who's already about to dunk. They catch it and dunk

at something like that. That seems right. You can tell I'm a big sports fan. You can. Yeah, like both of us together like really doing well here. Sports heads here just loving the balls, loving the ball balls, all the balls, footballs, basketballs. All right, I think we got to wrap up. That's our show for this week. Thanks so much for listening. Yeah. And as always, I wish you and your family the very best.