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Speaker 1: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask

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what you can do for your country. Mister Gerba show

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Tear down this Wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter

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Robinson and Charles C. W.

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Speaker 2: Cook.

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Speaker 1: I'm James Alex and today we talked to Christine Rosen

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about the extinction of experience. I know it sounds horrible,

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but she's talking about being human in a disembodied world.

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So let's tell us that's a podcast.

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Speaker 3: My fellow New york Is it is now my belief

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that the federal government intends to charge me with crimes.

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If so, these charges will be entirely false based on lives.

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I always knew that if I stood my ground all of.

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Speaker 1: You, that I would be a topic. Well, hi there,

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this is the Ricochet Podcast. And if you're wondering how

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many we've done, we've done seven hundred and ten. What up, No,

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we've done seven hundred to nine. When this is thank you,

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we will have done seven and there are protesting times.

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Speaker 4: Winger Cheriot is.

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Speaker 1: Peter Robinson with us again, Thank Evans and Charles A

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Cook in Florida. And before we get to the news

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of the day, well it is the news of the day. Frankly,

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how are you faring in the latest onslaught of Mother Nature?

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Speaker 4: Charlie.

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Speaker 1: We're good, We're good.

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Speaker 5: We're not in the same position as those who are hit.

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It really does look very bad, so thoughts to them.

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But we did have a lot of rain and wind,

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and furniture went into the pool, and the doors were

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slamming all night, and the lightning alarm was going off

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and the kids kept waking up, so we were aware

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of it. But fortunately, as far as I can see,

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there's no damage.

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Speaker 1: How far are you from the beach, Very.

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Speaker 5: Close to the beach, but on the east coast.

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Speaker 1: If I may ask the lightning detector.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so there are lightning alarms in the town and

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they go off.

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Speaker 1: To tell you that, to tell you there has been lightning.

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Speaker 5: Wow, to tell you there's lightning within five miles in

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case you're playing golf or tennis, or you're outside holding

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that I'm made of steel.

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Speaker 1: There's something completely unknown to those of us here who

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just simply enjoy the arc across the sky and give

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it no more thought. But we have tennis, and we

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have golf and the rest of it. A lightning alarm

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that's fascinating. We'll glad you're say, yes, you are on

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the east coast. You know, I always tell my wife

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that I want to move to the west. I want

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to be near palm trees and warm breezes and the sea.

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And then she's looking at this and cooking and crocking

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an eyebrow, cocking an eyebrow at Well, if we followed

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your advice, of course we would be either a out

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of a house or you know, be paying Usurus insurance rates,

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which I understand is part of a problem. Ah difficult

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to ensure houses down there, and you can sort of

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kind of see why.

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Speaker 6: But yes, may I pile in on that very moment,

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at every point, I want to see what Charlie does

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to slap me down on this one. Hurricane season in

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Florida raises each year the only imperfection that I can

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find in Florida political culture, and it is this people

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who are eleven months a year stout conservative supporters of

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Rond descentis wishing in every regard to roll back the

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government and get it out of our lives. In hurricane month,

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say oh, yes, but of course the government must subsidize

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all our insurance. Charlie, would you care to defend your

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fellow Floridians.

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Speaker 5: No, I'm not greatly in favor of subsidies. I think

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it's probably a little more complicated because there are already subsidies.

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So we're talking about requests within a system that already

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objers the free market. But no, I thought you were

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going to say that when the hurricanes come, people say

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the government must save us, and I was going to say,

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ish it. That is what we have a government for, yes,

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going out and saving people in natural disasters. But now

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I think that the free market instinct should be universal,

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and there's no reason others should pay to ensure my

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house because I want to live near the beach. So

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I'm with you.

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Speaker 6: Well, right, all right, Sorry, James, that went nowhere. That

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was a conversational non starter. I thought I could get

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a rise.

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Speaker 4: Out of it.

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Speaker 1: Well, he is unflappable in English. There are some I

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mean in his origin story. He's an America now as

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much as any of us.

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Speaker 5: But so maybe like Batman.

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Speaker 1: Well, speaking of Gotham City, the mayor Eric Adams has

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been first mayor and one hundred and ten or something.

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Speaker 4: To be slapped with a bunch of charges.

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Speaker 1: And people are saying, well, he's saying that the reason

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they're coming after him is because he has criticized the

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immigration policies of the administration. I don't think that's it.

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I think it might have to do something with taking

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money from a foreign government, specifically Turkey.

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Speaker 4: Peter.

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Speaker 1: I know that, you know, it may not seem like

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a big deal to the rest of the country, because

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no mayor from New York is, aside from Giuliani who failed,

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has had much of a national political impact. But if

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he does go down, there is a man standing behind

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him who will take the job, who is of the

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most radical bent you can imagine, and might further Well,

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let me put it this way, is New York almost

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impervious to the death blow? Is there just something in there?

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It's raw, that's the spirit that will keep it going

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so that it matter know what, it doesn't matter what

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sort of idiot gets in, It will still continue to

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burn bright and throw off a bunch of money. Or

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is the problem that plays a lot of American city's

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about to get worse for New York And I'm sorry,

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New York does matter. It matters a lot to the

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sense of this country, to its national identity, to its

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conception of itself. It is the Empire State Building. It

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is the brawny city of the forties that we saw,

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that you've see in the old newsreels, the glory of

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I mean, I love New York.

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Speaker 4: Can't stay there more than three days, but I love

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New York. So what's your thought on this?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, well, Charlie will chime in on this because as

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a National reviewman, he knows New York well. Has figured

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out very happily a way not to have to live there,

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but he knows New York well. So I grew up

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in upstate New York, and for me, the city was

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the great and glittering Oz. It was where I got

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to go on a field trip with a theater club,

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where we would go see two or three Broadway shows

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matinees which were cheap tickets, and where my parents a

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couple of times they did well on report cards, and

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my reward was a weekend family trip down.

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Speaker 4: To the city.

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Speaker 6: So for me, it is just fixed as a kind

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of mythical It's where the action was, It's where all

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the sophistication was. Okay, those were the days when New

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York as a state functioned pretty well, when upstate towns

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the mid sized towns, the sort of American answer to Bavaria, Binghamton,

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outside of which I grew up, Utica, Rochester, Schenectady. All

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of these towns were still functioning relatively healthy. Schenectady was

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General Electric, Rochester was eastman Kodak Binghamton, and Johnson City,

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where I grew.

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Speaker 1: Up was IBM.

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Speaker 6: That part of the state has essentially collapsed, and the

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city itself has about the same population today that it

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had when I was a kid. So what does that

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mean that it hasn't grown with the rest of the country.

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The imperviousness, and it does seem to be impervious, is

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all now narrowed down to financial services, where there are

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I don't know what one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand

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people in Manhattan who receive annual incomes every single year

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of well in excessive a million dollars and keep that

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whole town going. But for the as a place that

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was open to the middle class, as a place where

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when I was a kid, when we went to college

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in those days, the Ivy League was quite regional. It

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was an East Coast institution, and if like me, you

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were interested in journalism, you dreamed of going to New York.

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There were still publishing houses in New York where the published.

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I visit did Scribner's Scripner's wonderful building on Fifth Avenue,

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which I think now is a is a Sephora makeup

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shop or something of that nature. Charles Scribner the third

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sat at a desk and chatted with me and pulled

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out a manuscript that he had discovered stuffed way in

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the back of the desk that Max, who was the

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great editor.

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Speaker 4: It was a It was a Max Perkins.

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Speaker 6: Max Perkins exactly. Max Perkins had sat at that desk

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and had begun marking up a Hemingway manuscript and gone

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out for a Boloney sandwich at lunch or something like that,

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and shoved them and it had gotten jammed in the

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drawer at the back of the desk, and Charlie Scribner

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had discovered it. Okay, all of that was the mythical

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New York that seems to be gone. Now you're Bill

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Ackman and a billionaire, and the many people at or

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Ken Griffin and Citadel, and you're hiring extremely braake kids,

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and that little cone of finance does extremely well, and

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everything else is half what it was. Moving elsewhere. So

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there is a kind of very narrow sphere of activity

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that is impervious, but the rest of the city it

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doesn't feel that way to me.

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Speaker 1: Charlie correct me, Well.

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Speaker 5: I don't disagree with all that you said. I just

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still think that it's a truly great city. We were

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just having this conversation on the Editor's podcast as to

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whether or not New York is the greatest city in

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the world, and I said that, although it's not my

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favorite city in the world, I think it is the

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greatest city in the world in the same way as

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London was the greatest city in the world one hundred

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and fifty years ago. Whether or not people preferred it

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to Paris or Berlin or what you will, New York

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just seems to me to be the center of the universe,

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the capital of the West, and it makes it more

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baffling than I can describe that. Having worked out what

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it needs to do to run itself, well, it's declined

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to do that for now thirteen fourteen years. I mean,

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we know what to do to make New York run.

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What you need is a centrist or center right social

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liberal who does not agree with National Review on most

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things except crime right, and who make sure that the

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city doesn't plunge itself into unmanageable debt, and that deploys

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police around in the places that they're needed, and cleans

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up homeless encampments, and then New York works. I was

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lucky I moved to New York in twenty eleven. My

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parents back in England still had a conception of New

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York as it was in the nineteen eighties and early

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nineteen nineties. It's a very dangerous place, and they kept

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saying to me be careful.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 5: I didn't in any way resent that, but I did

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have to update them and say, did you know that

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it is more dangerous to live in London than it

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is to live in Manhattan? Right now, Well, that's no

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longer true. Unfortunately, it's not as bad as Seapple or

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San Francisco, but it's no longer true. When I lived

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there from twenty eleven to twenty fourteen, I worked there

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from twenty eleven to twenty seventeen, it was paradise and

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you could walk her out in the middle of the

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night and you could have shouted, I've got lots of

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valuables in my bag. At one o'clock in the morning,

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and no one would have touched you. The subway was

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clean and safe. It was great.

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Speaker 6: Actually, you make an extremely important point. New York attracts

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so much talent and so much capital that all the

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government of the city needs to do is two things,

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only two. Give the city safe streets and make sure

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as the subways run correct. That's all, that's all. And

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they those two things. You do, those two things, and

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you do have the capital of the world.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 1: The last time I was in New York City, I

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was awakened early, early, early in the morning by the

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symphony of jackhammers going on outside across the street, where

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they were building a sixty story tower called the Flame,

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which will have a roller coaster at the top of it.

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I made my way down a creaking, shuddering elevator from

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the nineteen twenties into the lobby of the Paramount Hotel,

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which has been updated since it was redone in the nineties.

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It looks like there should be a copy of Madonna's

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sex books sitting in the lobby somewhere outside.

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Speaker 4: Take a left.

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Speaker 1: You instantly are hit by the sounds of the cacaphony,

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the noise of everything. You jostle against people as you walk.

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When you get to Times Square, a couple of blocks later,

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you pass the Kababs, you pass the place the roama

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has come flowing up, the Sabarett's hot dogs, and then

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as you wend your way through Times Square, you feel

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the rumble of the subways beneath you as you pass

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a grate, and you can sense the whole arteries that

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stretch through the entire city. I moved about ten blocks

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to the north and made my way to Central Park,

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and then I was in a green and verdant paradise.

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It was a delight to the eyes and smelled beautiful

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and fresh and crisp, and the rest of it from

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there to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I beheld

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with my own eyes, thanks to the light bouncing off

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them and going into my retinas, the sights of art

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of which I had never seen, and all of it

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was the soundtrack of the noise of the people enjoying

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and the hundreds of people in the lobby and the

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rest of it. It was a completely and utterly human experience.

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It was what it meant to be human. And if

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you want to feel embodied, there is no better place

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to go.

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Speaker 4: Than New York City, which.

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Speaker 1: Brings us to our guest, Christine rot Rosen, has written

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the extinction of experience being human in a disembodied world.

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It's a very simple concept. It's a very complex concept.

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Speaker 4: Christine.

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Speaker 7: Welcome, Thank you for having me. It's good to be here.

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Speaker 1: So here's the deal. We've sort of made this bargain

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with technology that all of these things that our little

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glowing rectangles are portable.

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Speaker 4: Supercomputers are going to be able to do.

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Speaker 1: Was provide all of these adjuncts and add ons and

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improvements to life in which our physical selves would dissolve

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almost in a rapturous sense, with this metaverse of possibilities.

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And how's that working out for us? Let's just start there.

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Speaker 7: Well, not so well.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure your listeners have all seen the sort of

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dramatic stories about teen mental health crises and you know,

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particularly depression, anxiety. Those are all big concerns, as is

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what social media has done to our politics. But I

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actually was looking at more of a baseline individual level,

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at how it's changed our daily interactions and our daily behavior,

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because I think that often gets overlooked because you can

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easily dismiss the extreme stories and say, oh, well, that's

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up to parents to figure that out, or oh, it's

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not as bad as people say. And everyone always is

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worried about new technology, but I think it's actually really

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interposed itself on the way we treat each other in

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daily life. And I mean the strangers in public space

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we come into contact with, I mean our most intimate

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relations with our family members and our loved ones. And

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I worry that we've allowed certain behaviors to become habits

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and habits of mind and ways of thinking about the

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world without really pausing to consider if that's the direction

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we want to go. We've had these technologies for a

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while now we think we've adapted to them, but I

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think in some ways we're becoming machine like rather than

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making the machines more human.

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Speaker 6: So, Christine, I can think of one example, and it's

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too trivial for you to have written a book about it,

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but I'll give you the example, and then you give

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me something more meaningful. I just got back from a

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trip to Europe and we took friends. We didn't know

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these people, but the friends of friends, and we went

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to dinner with some europe some Europeans, and I thought

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that in Europe, of all places, there would still be

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some sense of protocol, of the protocols of courtesy, and

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then at dinner we would all talk to each other

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and lo and behold. Even Europeans felt totally free and

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un self conscious about plucking out their phones in the

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middle of conversation and just dropping out of the conversation

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until they had answered their emails. Okay, so that's one

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thing I don't twenty years ago that would have been

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unthink any place in America or Europe. I have the

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feeling that it has become common place. Certainly here in

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Silicon Valley it's commonplace. But okay, but that's not enough

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to write a book about.

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Speaker 2: No, although I could write many rants about just that practice.

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But that is one example among many of the way

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this technology and our use of it has come between

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us and some basic human pleasures. So I do have

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a chapter about human pleasures, whether that's food, hanging out

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with friends, going to life, music, going to a museum, travel.

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In every single realm of our private experience of pleasure,

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we have allowed technology to interpose itself between us and

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the experience. Now, some of that's fine. You want to

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take a picture of something you see. But the research

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is really interesting on that people take pictures of things,

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of experiences, particularly pleasurable experiences, thinking this will help me

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remember this experience. But in fact, the way our weird

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brains are wired, if you take a picture of something,

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you're less likely to remember it because there's some part

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of your brain that registers that you've externalized the memory

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function there. You've got a picture of it, you don't

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have to remember quite as much. So when we go

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on vacations, when we go to art museums and we

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sit around with friends, if we are putting a screen

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between us and that experience, we will have a different

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qualitative experience obviously, which is what you're describing, but we'll

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also have a different memory of that experience. And I

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think again that's one of those things where because our

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phones are so powerful and they can take these amazing

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pictures and it's so easy to do, we think that's

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all a positive, that's a net positive for society. But

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how many times do people sit down and go through

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their phones and scroll through it the way people used

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to sit down and go through a photo album when

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photos were harder to take in more precious objects and

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tangible objects. There's all kind of interesting new research that

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shows that some of our memory formation of really deep

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important human experiences is being altered by our constant mediation

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and use of technology. As for the Europeans, I do

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find that shocking, and I have noticed that as well

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when I was in London and Paris. Is surprising, yes,

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but again these are norms that have shifted with time.

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Some people will look at that and say, oh, that's

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just technology, we're adapting to it. But that is technology

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in a deeply personal space right where you're sitting down

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across the table enjoying a meal with friends. Television people

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used to rant about, you know, all kinds of things computers,

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even people would rant about. But in this case, again

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very private personal moments all being fed through a screen

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or allowing a person it's a real power move still

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actually to pull out your phone and to remove yourself

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from a social situation. But it's accepted, and I'm not

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sure we should accept that.

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Speaker 6: So, Christine, you are a person of such good cheer

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and such a transparently good heart that you can propose

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the most draconian reforms you want to and people will

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still say to themselves, well, you know, listening to from

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Christine Rosen, I could just about take it. So what

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how draconian are the reforms or the readjustments to our

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norms and protocols are What are you suggesting?

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Speaker 2: Well, these are the kinds of things that you can't

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really legislate. I mean, there's some things you can do

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to protect kids, and I've written about that, But in the.

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Speaker 6: Folks, have you done with your own kids? If I may, well,

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I listened to enough of the commentary podcast to know

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that you're very good and extremely attentive, and, like many

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of us, a tortured parent.

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Speaker 2: Yes, well, my kids are now both freshmen in college.

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But zero to five I was pretty draconian.

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Speaker 7: Zero to five. They had no screens, no television, no movies,

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zero computers.

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Speaker 2: Zero from zero to five because my feeling was that

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they needed to learn to read before they were captured

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by the image. The image is a much more powerful thing.

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It's much more entrancing, especially for kids. So I was

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pretty hardcore. I don't think all parents need to do that.

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That was just my choice. As they got older, they

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didn't get a cell phone untill they were in high school.

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Speaker 6: They were a lot.

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Speaker 2: I think they were the last kids, and again they

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complained bitterly about it. Now, however, they of on a

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couple of occasions said, you know what, it's easy for

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me to put down my phone. It's easy for me

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to block Snapchat for a couple of weeks because I'm

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doing it too much.

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Speaker 7: They have some.

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Speaker 6: Self discas you serve the Nobel Prize for mother.

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Speaker 2: You know, the verdicts still out. They're only eighteen, their

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brains are not fully developed yet. But I was tough

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with that because I worried early on about some of

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the impacts and I saw it. I saw when they

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would go to a friend's house.

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Speaker 6: And Christina, if I may, I just can't. I should remember,

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I just don't. Are your kids boys or you have

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one of each?

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Speaker 2: No, they're boys. So they're twin fraternal twin boys. And

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this is different than I probably would have been even

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more strict with social media if I had girls, honestly,

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because we know that it's social media, particularly in that

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tween in high school years.

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Speaker 7: It's much more risky for girls.

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Speaker 2: We just we know this now in terms of developmental

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and emotional attachment and how friend groups work. So I

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would have probably been even tougher with that, but yeah,

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I was kind of hardcore.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So for the rest of us, what are you propose?

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Speaker 2: And for the rest of us, you know what, I'm

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not For all my scolding, I don't really have a

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policy plan, but I would tell people to do this

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as an experiment. In those interstitial moments of your day

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when you would usually reach for your phone, don't go

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for a day where when you're waiting in traffic, or

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you're waiting for you know, for someone to pick you up,

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or you have a minute between you know, the tasks

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at work, don't look at your phone. Let your mind wander.

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Try that for twenty four hours, I think. And I

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forced myself to do this too, because it's difficult to do.

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Not filling that interstitial time with entertainment or communication or

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whatever it is your phone gives you and you use.

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Speaker 7: It for does allow for a totally.

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Speaker 2: Different experience of mind wandering, and it's kind of great.

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Like you might start worrying about your grocery list. That's

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what I did one time. But another time I had

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an idea for a peace I wanted to write, and

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I jotted it down and that became something I could

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work on. So your mind does need that. We are

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wired to let our minds wander in ways that take

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us down paths that lead to creativity and productivity.

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Speaker 1: I have one more question.

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Speaker 6: I'm going to hog you for one more moment and

447
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then I can see James is getting James is really ready.

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Speaker 7: Okay, So here's his facial expressions.

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Speaker 6: Yes, here's the last question. My last question. I recall

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reading ages and ages ago that we now know, we

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now understand in some ways that at least approaches the

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scientific that the oral tradition is incompatible with the ability

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to read. So we wonder how on earth were these

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people able to transmit Homer across the centuries before it

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became written down. And it turns out that into the

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twentieth century there were still societies where oral traditions remained,

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but the moment literacy became widespread in those societies. Funnily,

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I think there were actually YouTube videos recorded just when

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recordings first became possible, of Irish people, often the poorer

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parts of Ireland, who.

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Speaker 1: Are still illiterate.

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Speaker 6: But could we're still able to recite the great epics

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that somehow or other literacy blocks out some piece of

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the brain that made this oral tradition, these long acts

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of memorization possible. Okay, So with that in mind, do

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we really know what this object we hold in our hands,

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what this phone is doing to change our fundamental abilities

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as human beings? Is the research addequate? Do you have

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the feeling that, although research is beginning to come in

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Abigail Schreyer's written a book, Jonathan Height's written a book,

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do you have the feeling that we know enough?

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Speaker 7: Not yet? No, because the research really is in its

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early stages.

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Speaker 2: We've been conducting a massive social experiment for more than

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really about two decades now, but I think we have hints.

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And the challenge always with this sort of work is

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that some of the we do have some quantity data

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that can tell us certain things, but a lot of

479
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:06,400
what this is is a difference in qualitative experience, differences

480
00:24:06,559 --> 00:24:09,799
choices that lead to opportunity costs, particularly for children. If

481
00:24:09,799 --> 00:24:12,200
you're staring at a screen seven hours a day, you're

482
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:14,759
not doing other things, and those other things turn out

483
00:24:14,799 --> 00:24:17,920
to be very important free play, stuff that like John.

484
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:20,759
Speaker 7: And Abigail have written about very well for us.

485
00:24:21,039 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 2: For those of us who are hybrids, didn't we weren't

486
00:24:23,039 --> 00:24:25,000
raised with this stuff, but we embraced it as you

487
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,119
know adults, and think that we have a little more

488
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:29,480
savvy with it. It's the habits of mind and how

489
00:24:29,599 --> 00:24:31,839
quickly they formed that I think we need to think about.

490
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:35,279
And the qualitative part there is really important we have.

491
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:37,799
I have lots of good friends who who I met

492
00:24:37,839 --> 00:24:40,680
either via online email, you know, we text each other.

493
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:43,279
We don't see each other in person that much. My

494
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:47,119
qualitatively deepest relationships are with people I regularly see in person.

495
00:24:47,319 --> 00:24:50,440
That my face to face interactions, the people who will

496
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:51,799
show up for me when I need to ride to

497
00:24:51,839 --> 00:24:55,200
the airport or I'm sick. So those sorts of communities

498
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:58,039
are becoming I think for a lot of people weaker.

499
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,839
Those ties are becoming weaker because the trade off is

500
00:25:00,839 --> 00:25:04,119
we're spending so much time in mediated relationships. So it's

501
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:05,440
not that we have to get rid of all of

502
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:06,559
our mediated communication.

503
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:07,319
Speaker 7: We can't do that.

504
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,440
Speaker 2: We wouldn't be having this conversation without the technology that

505
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:14,160
allows that. But if I choose this way of talking

506
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:16,319
to you rather than seeing you face to face, if

507
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:19,000
I have that option because this way is easier, that

508
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:21,480
starts to undermine the quality of our connections and then

509
00:25:21,519 --> 00:25:24,279
we see this culturally and socially, we become more impatient

510
00:25:24,319 --> 00:25:26,319
with each other. We don't know how to get along

511
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:29,400
as well. There are all kinds of things like road

512
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:32,440
rage rates and other things that suggest we are becoming

513
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:38,160
less patient, less accepting, less able to get along even

514
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:41,480
when we disagree, and not just politically but socially.

515
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 5: I wonder, Christine George extent, you're essentially playing anthropologists here

516
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,759
in a world that now exists like this. I mean

517
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:54,480
a lot of book subtitles have and here's what we

518
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:58,039
can do about it. But you said you don't necessarily know.

519
00:25:59,279 --> 00:26:03,440
We have this world in which the phone is at

520
00:26:03,519 --> 00:26:06,039
the center. And if you look, if I pick up

521
00:26:06,079 --> 00:26:07,440
my phone right now, if I do what you told

522
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:10,039
me not to do, and I pick up my phone

523
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:12,039
right now, and I look at the front, so I

524
00:26:12,079 --> 00:26:16,079
have email which has replaced letters, and I have a

525
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,319
phone on it obviously, and then I have a photos

526
00:26:18,319 --> 00:26:20,680
app which has replaced my camera. And then I have

527
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:23,440
all sorts of work stuff slack that we use so

528
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,240
I can be ping ale the time, and I have Dropbox.

529
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:27,680
But what I also have is things like remote controls

530
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:29,759
for the lights in my kitchen and from my Apple

531
00:26:29,839 --> 00:26:33,160
TV and for Sona, so I play music through. And

532
00:26:33,279 --> 00:26:35,799
somebody pointed out to me the other day that she

533
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,720
has started to be more what she called intentional with

534
00:26:38,759 --> 00:26:41,559
her kids, because in the past, if you were watching TV,

535
00:26:41,599 --> 00:26:44,160
you would walk over and you would use a remote control,

536
00:26:44,319 --> 00:26:46,519
or if you were communicating with someone, you would pick

537
00:26:46,599 --> 00:26:47,920
up the phone, or you would write a letter. Or

538
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:49,960
if she were working, she would be in her office,

539
00:26:50,039 --> 00:26:51,920
or if she were putting on music, she would go

540
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:54,079
over and put on a vinyl record or whatever. But

541
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:57,000
now to her children who are standing in the distance,

542
00:26:57,279 --> 00:26:59,400
she's always doing this, even though she's doing lots of

543
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:01,960
different things on the phone, completely different things. Maybe to

544
00:27:02,039 --> 00:27:06,559
them it all looks the same. So is that just

545
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:07,880
what we have done with the world?

546
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 1: Now?

547
00:27:08,319 --> 00:27:10,200
Speaker 5: I agree with you that I sometimes sit at dinner

548
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:11,680
and I pick up my phone and I think, don't

549
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:13,240
do that because I'm going to check Twitter or do

550
00:27:13,319 --> 00:27:15,599
something pointless. But is there a point to which we

551
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:17,559
have made this road for our back and we're just

552
00:27:17,599 --> 00:27:18,759
going to have to suck it up?

553
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 7: Yes and no.

554
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:22,440
Speaker 2: Yes, we have turned it into a Swiss army knife

555
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:22,960
for life.

556
00:27:23,079 --> 00:27:23,279
Speaker 1: Right.

557
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:25,839
Speaker 7: It has everything on it and in fact you need

558
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:26,319
to use it.

559
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:29,079
Speaker 2: You can't live without it in certain fields of work

560
00:27:29,079 --> 00:27:30,640
because there's a lot of work stuff on there that

561
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:35,599
people need to unlock access to documents or to actual buildings.

562
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,359
You can't park in many cities without having the app

563
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:41,400
because there's no place to actually do that except on

564
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,279
the phone. So and I had a friend who struggled

565
00:27:44,319 --> 00:27:46,200
mightily with He went to a concert and he needed

566
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:47,960
to put everything in a locker, and he had to

567
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,160
download the app, and he has a very old phone,

568
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:52,599
and the phone was like not happening, so we couldn't

569
00:27:52,839 --> 00:27:55,640
put his belongings there. And he was very frustrated by

570
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:57,839
this idea that the technology it's supposed to make his

571
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:00,480
life easier has just made it more difficult. So in

572
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:04,079
that sense, I think our overreliance on it is of concern.

573
00:28:04,559 --> 00:28:07,000
It certainly should be of concern if you're an employee

574
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:09,559
in a large company that has you wear a badge

575
00:28:09,559 --> 00:28:11,880
with sensors that monitor lots of things about your day

576
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:13,920
that maybe you don't want your employer to know as well.

577
00:28:14,079 --> 00:28:17,039
So from a privacy standpoint, my deepest concern though, is

578
00:28:17,079 --> 00:28:20,559
how readily and easily and unthinkingly we've brought it into

579
00:28:20,559 --> 00:28:22,799
our private sphere. So as you said, your friend could

580
00:28:22,799 --> 00:28:24,319
go to the office and do her work and then

581
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:27,519
come home. But now everything travels with you. And the

582
00:28:27,559 --> 00:28:30,640
sophistication of this technology, particular in the future with the

583
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:32,839
patents that are pending for all kinds of sensors that

584
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:34,839
can be embedded in your phone. Most of us carry

585
00:28:34,839 --> 00:28:36,960
our phones with us all the time on our bodies.

586
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,640
It's the first thing people reach for in the morning.

587
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:41,519
It's the last thing so many people touch before they

588
00:28:41,519 --> 00:28:45,400
go to bed. This device is now in your private space,

589
00:28:45,559 --> 00:28:47,799
and it can hear you, It can report to all

590
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,160
kinds of people and entities. You might not be aware

591
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:52,079
of what you're doing, what you're saying. Soon it'll be

592
00:28:52,119 --> 00:28:54,400
able to measure your heart rate, all these things. This

593
00:28:54,519 --> 00:28:57,880
is a very intimate device, and I think we still

594
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,359
think of it as a Swiss army knife could set

595
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,119
aside and go about our day. That the intentions of

596
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,440
the people in Silicon Valley who design many of these

597
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:09,359
technologies and the platforms and software that fuel them, is

598
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,680
to become even more intimate and turn so much of

599
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:16,480
our private experience into data into information for others to use.

600
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:20,160
My question is, do you want your relationship with your kids,

601
00:29:20,279 --> 00:29:22,279
the way the tone of voice you use when you

602
00:29:22,279 --> 00:29:24,720
speak to your spouse to be turned into data that

603
00:29:24,799 --> 00:29:27,240
someone else can have access to and use, because that's

604
00:29:27,319 --> 00:29:29,720
the direction that I think a lot of these platforms

605
00:29:29,759 --> 00:29:30,160
want us to have.

606
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:35,759
Speaker 5: Right, So how do I stop that? Because if I

607
00:29:35,799 --> 00:29:39,240
have a phone and it's near me, and it has

608
00:29:39,279 --> 00:29:43,720
a microphone, and it has the capacity to broadcast, then

609
00:29:43,839 --> 00:29:46,240
I only have two ways of stopping that. One is

610
00:29:46,279 --> 00:29:47,759
to stop using the phone or turn it off or

611
00:29:47,799 --> 00:29:50,599
throw it away, and the other is to pass laws

612
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:53,960
that says to those companies, you are not allowed to

613
00:29:54,039 --> 00:29:55,240
process this information.

614
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:58,359
Speaker 2: Right, So the law is the is the probably the

615
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,680
least effective tool here because we and we've tried that.

616
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:02,759
Like again, a lot of these people, a lot of

617
00:30:02,799 --> 00:30:04,240
people would be happy to say, oh I don't care

618
00:30:04,279 --> 00:30:06,480
what people here, I have nothing to hide. That attitude

619
00:30:06,519 --> 00:30:08,880
worries me. But there is a minority people who feel

620
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:11,640
that way. I actually think it's in this case, turn

621
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:14,599
it off at night, like power it down or put

622
00:30:14,599 --> 00:30:16,559
it in another room. But I turned my phone off

623
00:30:16,559 --> 00:30:18,799
at night and then I use an old fashioned alarm clock.

624
00:30:18,839 --> 00:30:20,599
And I made that choice a few years ago because

625
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:22,920
I found I was looking at that phone right before

626
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:24,680
bed and looking at it first thing in the morning,

627
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:27,079
and it changed the way I began and ended my day,

628
00:30:27,079 --> 00:30:28,880
and I didn't like it. So I do think that

629
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:31,720
again awareness of it. And I know for years people

630
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,039
have been saying, take a digital sabbath, you know, get

631
00:30:34,079 --> 00:30:36,599
a meditation app. All of that's fine and good, but

632
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,839
we need to actually spend twenty four hours thinking about

633
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:43,279
how often you mediate an experience, and how often you

634
00:30:43,319 --> 00:30:45,839
mediate experience is in your private home and in your

635
00:30:45,839 --> 00:30:48,960
private relationships. I think you'd be shocked how often it

636
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,400
happens now without us really registering it.

637
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's amazing.

638
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:55,559
Speaker 1: Christine.

639
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,759
Speaker 6: Is this just exactly as I pictured her listening to

640
00:30:59,799 --> 00:31:02,359
her on Common. She is this woman of wonderful good

641
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:04,480
will and could, but she's also a little bit of

642
00:31:04,519 --> 00:31:05,240
a nag, isn't it.

643
00:31:05,319 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 1: I am?

644
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 7: I am, I'm a total skold. It's my role in life.

645
00:31:10,319 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 1: Well to that point, I would actually like the conversations

646
00:31:13,039 --> 00:31:15,319
between myself and my wife to be transcribed and sent

647
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,039
to some third party so that I can empirically show

648
00:31:18,079 --> 00:31:22,920
her that to judge Judy, that her tone of voice

649
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:23,640
is actually.

650
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,319
Speaker 4: A little bit more sharp and hectoring them. Then she

651
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:28,319
may think it may be I would like to hear that, Christine.

652
00:31:28,319 --> 00:31:29,559
Speaker 1: There's so many things to talk about here.

653
00:31:29,599 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 4: There's so so many aspects. You know.

654
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:33,359
Speaker 1: One of the things that I don't like about the

655
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:36,279
ubiquity of the phone is when you walk away, walk

656
00:31:36,319 --> 00:31:38,680
into a public area, into a lobby for example, or

657
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,519
even on the street, you see all these heads bent

658
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:46,279
over their devices in private communion with them. And you know,

659
00:31:46,359 --> 00:31:49,319
sometimes I think if it was a book, nobody would

660
00:31:49,359 --> 00:31:51,599
be nobody would care, nobody would think anything of it.

661
00:31:51,759 --> 00:31:54,319
If if you walked into a place and everybody was

662
00:31:54,359 --> 00:31:56,640
looking down at a book, you would think this is

663
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:59,400
the most literous society ever. And so, you know, we

664
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,599
don't know what exactly people are looking at. We're just

665
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,559
sort of unnerved by the fact that everybody seems in

666
00:32:05,599 --> 00:32:09,559
a demonstrably obvious public or private place, in a public smoth.

667
00:32:09,799 --> 00:32:13,039
There's no communal aspect of this. And they were complaining

668
00:32:13,079 --> 00:32:15,039
about that when the Walkman first came out. They said,

669
00:32:15,039 --> 00:32:16,759
here are all these people walking around big cities with

670
00:32:16,799 --> 00:32:19,079
these headphones in their private little world and their private

671
00:32:19,079 --> 00:32:21,319
little soundtracks, and they have no I mean, so this

672
00:32:21,359 --> 00:32:24,599
has been boiling for an awful long time. The problem,

673
00:32:24,799 --> 00:32:27,079
as you point out, is that it's so attractive to

674
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:31,680
be able to get whatever you want. But when you

675
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:35,519
mentioned the photographs that I found fascinating, this may sound

676
00:32:35,839 --> 00:32:38,200
really boring, but I make a point of taking a

677
00:32:38,279 --> 00:32:41,480
video every single day. I've been doing this for two

678
00:32:41,559 --> 00:32:44,359
years now, and I have this sort of daily record

679
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:47,960
that reminds me of the utter banality of my existence.

680
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 7: Is it the same thing that you video every day?

681
00:32:50,519 --> 00:32:51,799
Or is it something different every day?

682
00:32:51,839 --> 00:32:54,319
Speaker 1: No, it's something different. It's work, it's the supermarket, it's

683
00:32:54,599 --> 00:32:56,559
walking the dog, it's this that or the other. It's

684
00:32:56,799 --> 00:32:59,240
but it's just sort of it's like taking a leaf

685
00:32:59,279 --> 00:33:01,920
that may otherwise fall from the tree and disintegrate and

686
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:03,880
and coding it with lacquer and putting it in a book.

687
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:07,200
I mean, it's just somehow a way of making time.

688
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:10,200
It's incorporeal, but just sort of at the end of

689
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,480
the year, I've got this year, in addition to my

690
00:33:12,519 --> 00:33:15,920
travel videos and my travel photos, the photos that I

691
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:18,880
take on travel, I remember every single one where I was,

692
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,000
what I did, what I felt, who I was with.

693
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:24,200
Because you mentioned before the photos that you would you

694
00:33:24,279 --> 00:33:24,960
have in your phone.

695
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 4: Nobody looks at them.

696
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: But you know what did they do before they would

697
00:33:29,799 --> 00:33:33,759
the father would take out the shimmering screen for the

698
00:33:33,799 --> 00:33:38,960
carousel projector the slides right, and everybody would yeah with

699
00:33:39,039 --> 00:33:42,279
that sort of the clicker and endures of.

700
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 6: Suicide would cross everyone else's mind.

701
00:33:45,039 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 1: Grainy coda, chromes of this or that, and it's a ship.

702
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 4: And oh, it's the ocean and the rest of it.

703
00:33:50,039 --> 00:33:50,359
And it was.

704
00:33:50,599 --> 00:33:52,720
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it was still a social,

705
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:56,039
communal thing where everybody got together and participated in this

706
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:58,920
projection of what the reality that the people had spent.

707
00:33:59,759 --> 00:34:02,319
Now that has something to go for it, because everyone's

708
00:34:02,319 --> 00:34:04,000
sitting around the TV dinner tray and they're having their

709
00:34:04,039 --> 00:34:06,160
TV Swanson's and they're having a beer and it's you know,

710
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:08,320
they're now company comes over. That's what you do. And

711
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:11,360
I think that is a preferable model. But what we

712
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,360
have today nobody gets together and shows pictures in cyberspace.

713
00:34:15,519 --> 00:34:17,519
I've just used a term that dates me, but there

714
00:34:17,559 --> 00:34:22,280
are other analogs. You mentioned the metaverse in the description

715
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:25,280
of your book, which I think is a fascinating failure.

716
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 4: It is a repellent.

717
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:32,800
Speaker 1: Place that is so anti human and anti and strikes

718
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:39,039
you as wrong on atomic level that it failed. Nobody's

719
00:34:39,039 --> 00:34:41,760
talking about it anymore. Why do you think that was

720
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:45,519
the case? And why does the metaverse and the Zuckerberg

721
00:34:45,519 --> 00:34:48,800
e siderations of it fail? But yet the young men

722
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:52,679
getting together in call of duty and great groups to

723
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:58,480
wage cyber digital mayhem is so amazingly popular in such

724
00:34:58,480 --> 00:34:59,960
a bonding experience for them.

725
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 2: Well, the metaverse failed in part because the first avatars

726
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,639
had no lower bodies. You remember that there were like

727
00:35:05,679 --> 00:35:11,000
these weird torsos that would very creepy. I don't understand

728
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:14,079
what Zuckerberg was thinking. Interestingly, though, you know what Zuckerberg

729
00:35:14,119 --> 00:35:17,119
is embracing now. Are the glasses a new form of

730
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,960
sort of augmented reality not virtual reality?

731
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 7: Because the idea is you would have.

732
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:25,159
Speaker 2: An overlay at all times over your face as you

733
00:35:25,199 --> 00:35:27,840
go about your day, giving you all kinds of information,

734
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:30,599
but also potentially, for example, say you don't like how

735
00:35:30,679 --> 00:35:33,239
your neighbor's yard looks, you could just you know, erase

736
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:34,880
that from your view so that when you walk down

737
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:36,400
the block you don't have to see things you don't

738
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:37,039
want to see.

739
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:39,599
Speaker 7: That worries me quite a bit, but.

740
00:35:40,599 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: Let me just jump in there for a second, because

741
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:44,960
you're absolutely right. I've been thinking about this a long time.

742
00:35:45,079 --> 00:35:48,440
Augmented reality means that the world will be tailored to

743
00:35:48,519 --> 00:35:51,199
my expectations, my desires, and my needs. So what I'm

744
00:35:51,199 --> 00:35:53,239
wearing the glasses and I walk by, and the sensor

745
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,880
says it's me, and it sends the signal, It communicates

746
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,880
and says, well, mister Lylax likes advertisements about this, and

747
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:02,119
I see these ads, and then the next block the

748
00:36:02,119 --> 00:36:05,199
same thing happens. What this means, if it's ubiquitous enough,

749
00:36:05,679 --> 00:36:09,440
is that the physical reality is no longer a shared reality.

750
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 7: Exactly that.

751
00:36:10,159 --> 00:36:14,159
Speaker 1: And that I don't like that building, I can tap

752
00:36:14,199 --> 00:36:16,760
it and I can say change that travertine marble to

753
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:20,400
a pinkish hue. So I mean, if you can customize

754
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:24,280
and skin everything in the world, then nobody is physically

755
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:27,599
inhabiting the same place, which is a whole different level

756
00:36:27,679 --> 00:36:30,440
of wrong from everybody just being bent down into this

757
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:32,960
little personal computers go on.

758
00:36:33,119 --> 00:36:35,639
Speaker 2: Well, and that actually is the vision of a lot

759
00:36:35,679 --> 00:36:38,840
of the Silicon Valley theorists. Mark Dreesen described just that

760
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:41,840
world when he talked about reality privilege. He says it's

761
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:45,039
a privilege that for most people reality is terrible, Like

762
00:36:45,079 --> 00:36:47,320
their lives are miserable, they don't have to make enough money,

763
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:48,440
they don't like where they live.

764
00:36:48,559 --> 00:36:50,079
Speaker 7: That you know, he listed all these things.

765
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,239
Speaker 2: But then for a few, you know, they enjoy their realities,

766
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:56,800
but they're they're engaging in reality privilege by denying a

767
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:00,000
virtual reality that would be perfect and tailored and wonderful

768
00:37:00,159 --> 00:37:04,039
for the people whose actual physical reality is nuts or bad.

769
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:05,760
And so he says, Oh, I know people will think

770
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:08,920
this is dystopian. I mean it literally is a dystopian

771
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:11,960
science fiction novel called Ready Player one. But he thinks

772
00:37:12,039 --> 00:37:16,199
the solution to the world's problems is to slap virtual

773
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,000
reality goggles on people whose lives are kind of miserable

774
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:22,320
and let them live in a different world. And look,

775
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:24,199
the reason all those guys like to play Call of

776
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:26,480
Duty together is that you have a real emotional experience

777
00:37:26,519 --> 00:37:27,119
when you do that.

778
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:28,679
Speaker 7: You're talking to people.

779
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:33,280
Speaker 2: But you're sitting completely alone playing. You're not usually playing

780
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:35,480
on the couch next to someone else. You are in

781
00:37:35,519 --> 00:37:38,239
your own space and you're having conversations while you play.

782
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:41,199
So it feels social, but in a way, it's kind

783
00:37:41,199 --> 00:37:45,559
of a simulacrum of sociability compared to everybody. I mean,

784
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:48,280
I'm from the Atari years, the first person whose parents

785
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,719
could afford Atari, like we were all over in their basement,

786
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,920
like taking turns playing it and talking to her. That actually,

787
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,079
in a weird way, was a more sociable experience than

788
00:37:56,079 --> 00:37:58,559
how a lot of gamers play today. So I think

789
00:37:58,599 --> 00:38:01,360
again the opportunity cost. Like if you're spending four hours

790
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,000
playing Call of Duty with your friends but no time

791
00:38:04,079 --> 00:38:06,000
during the week seeing them in person, which is the

792
00:38:06,039 --> 00:38:08,800
reality for a lot of young men these days, you're

793
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:12,920
not building the same sorts of bonds that previous generations

794
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:13,280
could take.

795
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 1: For granted, absolutely the bowling team used to get together

796
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,119
and hurl the spheres at the pins a great noise,

797
00:38:19,159 --> 00:38:20,679
and all the rest of it news a communal thing.

798
00:38:21,079 --> 00:38:23,840
When Doom first came out and before it was network,

799
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:25,840
my friends and I would get together and take turns

800
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,159
playing levels we would take and we watch the other

801
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:32,039
and we would participate in that. And it's better, I guess,

802
00:38:32,119 --> 00:38:34,320
when it's online a network, and it's more dynamic and

803
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:35,840
it's much more immersive than the rest of it.

804
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 4: But you're absolutely right.

805
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:41,280
Speaker 1: At the same time, though, the emotion is genuine because

806
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:43,199
it's a bunch of dudes who are yelling at each

807
00:38:43,199 --> 00:38:45,280
other and busting each other's believes and the rest of it.

808
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,280
And it's real and it's the way guys are. But

809
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:53,679
emotion outside of land parties, emotion on the mediator devices,

810
00:38:53,679 --> 00:38:56,280
on the social media is different. And your book talks

811
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:58,960
about this, about how the reality of emotion that we

812
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,639
have face to face is we have to wrap it

813
00:39:01,679 --> 00:39:04,320
back we or with others we are free to let

814
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:06,280
it go and the rest of it. It's a whole

815
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:11,119
different performative thing in the real world. But online emotion

816
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:16,679
is is is shaped and twisted and contorted and perverted

817
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:22,000
by a sort of online way of managing the discourse

818
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:25,800
that has done something to emotion that's made people tell

819
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:31,119
me if I'm wrong, made people almost weary, ashamed, cringey

820
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:33,280
about actual emotion.

821
00:39:33,679 --> 00:39:34,280
Speaker 7: Right well there.

822
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:36,760
Speaker 2: It's kind of like the way when the early filters

823
00:39:37,119 --> 00:39:39,679
on Instagram came in and everyone's like, oh, people are

824
00:39:39,679 --> 00:39:41,840
going to make themselves look like you know, robots.

825
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:44,800
Speaker 7: It's terrible. Actually, people did all try.

826
00:39:44,679 --> 00:39:47,079
Speaker 2: To find an unfiltered photo on Instagram, even the ones

827
00:39:47,079 --> 00:39:47,760
that claim to be.

828
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:50,840
Speaker 7: You know unfiltered, still have a filter. And what has

829
00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:51,320
this led to.

830
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:53,360
Speaker 2: This has led to a lot of certainly young people

831
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:56,039
having unreasonable expectations of what they should look like. And

832
00:39:56,079 --> 00:39:57,800
when they look in an actual mirror and see their

833
00:39:57,800 --> 00:39:59,960
own faces unfiltered, they're sort of horrified.

834
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 7: There's something similar that goes on with emotion, right.

835
00:40:03,039 --> 00:40:08,639
Speaker 2: We can these these platforms reward strong human emotions fear, anger, anxiety.

836
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:12,360
They don't really reward happiness. They don't reward generosity in

837
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:15,199
quite the same way, right, because it's the more powerful

838
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:17,559
human emotions that will get you coming back and yelling

839
00:40:17,639 --> 00:40:21,039
and screaming at people. You know, the emoticons we use,

840
00:40:21,079 --> 00:40:23,679
the memes we send around, they do all communicate a feeling.

841
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:27,239
But when we're in person, we actually it's harder to

842
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:30,280
deceive each other. It's harder to be self deceptive. You

843
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:33,199
reveal a great deal more. There's a whole unspoken language

844
00:40:33,199 --> 00:40:36,880
that our physical bodies information our physical bodies give off,

845
00:40:37,079 --> 00:40:40,599
not using words, but simply using gestures. And when you're

846
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:43,360
very young and you're learning how to read people's faces

847
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,599
and understand that a furrow brow could be concern, it

848
00:40:46,599 --> 00:40:50,320
could be anger, it could be you know, anxiety. You

849
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:52,960
learn to read others emotions because you're staring at other

850
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,480
human beings most of your time. Well, that's not true

851
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:58,079
for people nowadays. We do a lot of stuff through

852
00:40:58,119 --> 00:41:02,679
filtering devices, and there've been interesting studies of lying, for example,

853
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:05,880
lying through video conferencing versus lying in person versus lying

854
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:09,320
over phone conversation. And it's just much easier to fool

855
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,400
people when you have the technological mediation going on.

856
00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 7: And so again concerns for you. Think about AI.

857
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:19,880
Speaker 2: You could have real time political ads being sent to

858
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:23,079
people's phones that feature a candidate who maybe lacks charisma

859
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:25,840
or seems a little shifty, and the AI can in

860
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,280
real time transform their voice, their mannerisms, knowing what people

861
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:34,679
respond to evolutionarily, because we're hardwired, you know, creatures what

862
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:37,719
they will respond to. So the level of manipulation that

863
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:40,440
we can do also worries me down the line for

864
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:44,239
trusting our own ability to read each other's intentions. And

865
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:46,840
again to the point you made earlier about social space,

866
00:41:47,039 --> 00:41:49,119
that's why it's important to be look have more look

867
00:41:49,199 --> 00:41:52,400
up experiences in public space, not look down experiences.

868
00:41:52,639 --> 00:41:54,079
Speaker 7: You to even go to a museum these.

869
00:41:54,079 --> 00:41:56,119
Speaker 2: Days, everybody's taking pictures of the art rather than just

870
00:41:56,159 --> 00:41:58,480
sitting there and looking at it for me nuts, See,

871
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:04,280
I am a scoldin I told you, Peter, So Christine,

872
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:05,440
I am wondering.

873
00:42:06,599 --> 00:42:10,599
Speaker 6: Oh, by the way, Charlie, make a note, all depositions

874
00:42:10,639 --> 00:42:16,280
take place by zoom from now on exactly. So Christine,

875
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:21,039
here's what's in my little head. This is I'll fumble

876
00:42:21,079 --> 00:42:22,920
through this because it's a thought that's just occurring to

877
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:26,719
me now. But I had a chat just yesterday, as

878
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:29,320
it happened, with an old friend of mine, Peter tele

879
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:31,639
And Peter Teel is one of these people who's a

880
00:42:31,679 --> 00:42:36,360
great seer of technology and trends and constantly searching for

881
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,400
the meaning of history. And he's so smart that he

882
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:40,760
actually sort of pulls it off.

883
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: And his view is.

884
00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 6: That what happened with the Manhattan Project in nineteen forty

885
00:42:49,519 --> 00:42:55,639
five is now being replicated and in public psyche in

886
00:42:55,679 --> 00:42:59,639
the following sense, technology was good, good, good, good good

887
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:05,880
until we produce nuclear weapons and suddenly it became scary.

888
00:43:07,119 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: Add to that the prospects.

889
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 6: I think everyone on this podcast agrees that ninety percent

890
00:43:14,039 --> 00:43:15,960
of this is nonsense, but it's still in people's heads.

891
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:21,360
Climate change, that because of our technology. We're damaging the

892
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,400
very planet, the very air that we are at, very environments,

893
00:43:25,079 --> 00:43:29,880
and now here comes this technology, the phone Tesla. As

894
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,199
I understand it, Lord knows, I'm not an investor at

895
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:34,320
a level where I could make this kind of decision.

896
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,920
But as I understand it, nobody thinks Tesla is worth

897
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,199
as much as its current market cap purely as a

898
00:43:41,199 --> 00:43:45,840
car company. This is a data play that Elon has constructed,

899
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:52,039
this environment which knows where you travel, what telephone conversations

900
00:43:52,079 --> 00:43:56,039
you're having, what music you're listening to. He has created

901
00:43:55,679 --> 00:43:59,400
a vehicle that will capture data about tens of millions

902
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:04,199
of people. And so I put it to you, Christine,

903
00:44:04,559 --> 00:44:05,360
that you're too.

904
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 7: Cheerful now that no one's ever told me.

905
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:13,840
Speaker 6: That that what we need in this moment is not Christine,

906
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:19,320
cheerfully by your by your by your sheer, goodwill and cheerfulness.

907
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:21,599
You imply that we make a few adjustments and we'll

908
00:44:21,599 --> 00:44:22,239
get through this.

909
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:24,679
Speaker 4: We need we need.

910
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:31,280
Speaker 6: The prophet Jeremiah. We need Jonah walking through nineveh saying repent.

911
00:44:32,679 --> 00:44:34,719
This is all that that we live in. It actually

912
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,800
at quite a dark moment. People are actually really quite

913
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:41,239
scared and somehow or other, we need to pull ourselves

914
00:44:41,239 --> 00:44:47,000
together and somehow get a handle on our fears. And

915
00:44:47,119 --> 00:44:49,679
this device that we hold in our hand is more

916
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:52,639
and more one of the one of the factors that

917
00:44:52,679 --> 00:44:54,880
makes us frightened in some at some level.

918
00:44:55,039 --> 00:44:58,000
Speaker 2: All right, well, I would, I would say, and I

919
00:44:58,079 --> 00:44:59,760
might say it cheerfully, but I do mean it, and

920
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:01,920
I and I do get into some trouble with my

921
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:03,920
more libertarian economics.

922
00:45:03,360 --> 00:45:04,199
Speaker 7: Colleagues at AI.

923
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,679
Speaker 2: But we have to actively defend the human things because

924
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:10,199
right now it's a phone, but eventually it'll be a

925
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:12,760
censor or a device you wear on your face or

926
00:45:13,599 --> 00:45:15,679
contact lens. It'll be something you wear on your physical

927
00:45:15,679 --> 00:45:17,840
body all the time. That is much less cumbersome than

928
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:19,880
holding this phone, which we drop and stick in our

929
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:23,119
pockets and you know, lose. We have to defend the

930
00:45:23,199 --> 00:45:25,880
human things, and that means coming to some agreement about

931
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:28,679
what are the valuable human experiences that are missing or.

932
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 7: Disappearing.

933
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:34,119
Speaker 2: Face to face human interaction for me is the number

934
00:45:34,159 --> 00:45:37,280
one thing, and that means actively throughout the day making

935
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:40,320
those choices, and actually in our educational institutions, in our

936
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:44,800
political institutions, in our legal institutions, insisting people get to

937
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:47,719
look at each other when they when serious moments are happening, right,

938
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:51,840
whether that's, you know, an important piece of legislation being debated,

939
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:54,239
whether that's a judge handing down a sentence, all of

940
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:57,639
these things should stay human. Same with education. So we

941
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:00,079
have to make those sorts of choices. But then we

942
00:46:00,079 --> 00:46:02,159
also need to resist these poles to allow it.

943
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 6: Brilliant, that's brilliant. No, defending the human things you can divide.

944
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,960
I mean, if we had a candidate who had any

945
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:13,360
wits about him or her, we'd be hearing that kind

946
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:17,239
of comment right now. I mean, for that matter, at AEI,

947
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:19,119
they can go raise one hundred million dollars to put

948
00:46:19,159 --> 00:46:21,800
Christine in charge of the Human Things initiative. But I

949
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,079
like this, But no, I truly, truly, I think you

950
00:46:25,199 --> 00:46:26,320
really that's beautifully put.

951
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:27,280
Speaker 4: You're really onto something.

952
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 2: Well, that's the challenge is then, to people is not

953
00:46:33,079 --> 00:46:36,159
it's the condemnation. Isn't of the technology per se. It's

954
00:46:36,159 --> 00:46:39,079
what we're choosing to alter the human things with the

955
00:46:39,079 --> 00:46:42,519
technology and particularly the Silicon Valley ethos of humans are

956
00:46:42,519 --> 00:46:44,679
the problems that need to be fixed. I think humans

957
00:46:44,679 --> 00:46:46,840
are the solution to the problems we've created with some

958
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:47,679
of this technology.

959
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:50,159
Speaker 1: Well, this has been absolutely marvelous. I could go on

960
00:46:50,199 --> 00:46:53,159
for another two hours and well I just got a notification.

961
00:46:55,719 --> 00:47:00,159
It's uh from Norton, the publisher. It says Christine is

962
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:02,639
under the weather, unable to make it. Can we are

963
00:47:02,679 --> 00:47:04,239
sending an AI version?

964
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:05,679
Speaker 4: Riz up.

965
00:47:07,199 --> 00:47:09,800
Speaker 1: Oh it could be.

966
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:11,559
Speaker 4: You're as human as they come.

967
00:47:12,119 --> 00:47:12,360
Speaker 1: Thanks.

968
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:13,159
Speaker 4: Good luck with the book.

969
00:47:13,559 --> 00:47:16,960
Speaker 1: The book as everybody should run out and buy and

970
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:19,840
read and love. Is the extinction of experience being human

971
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:24,599
in a disembodied world. Possibly the most relevant topic that

972
00:47:24,639 --> 00:47:25,880
I can think of today because it.

973
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:27,199
Speaker 4: Affects where we all go.

974
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:29,480
Speaker 1: In the words of Kriswell, we are all interested in

975
00:47:29,519 --> 00:47:31,079
the future because the future.

976
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:32,559
Speaker 4: Is where we will spend our time.

977
00:47:33,599 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 1: Never quoted Plan nine from Outer Space at the end

978
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:37,000
of a podcast before Christine.

979
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:37,760
Speaker 4: Thanks an awful lot.

980
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:43,320
Speaker 1: Thank Christine, thank you, thank you so much to go there.

981
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:45,360
You know so much. I could just go on and

982
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:47,239
on about this. I with my own daughter, I mean

983
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:52,440
my daughter. We communicate primarily by text these days, you know,

984
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:55,920
and because she's a writer, and I love the fact

985
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:58,400
that I can just absolutely I can pick up this

986
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,760
thing and enter a commerce It's just like this, you know,

987
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:07,000
fast paced snapping back and forth, meeting of the minds.

988
00:48:07,079 --> 00:48:09,440
And we wouldn't have had that. What what I would

989
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:14,000
have done twenty thirty years ago? Telegraph carry your pigeons anyway,

990
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:16,039
So that yes, yes.

991
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 5: Charles, I left that feeling optimistic.

992
00:48:20,559 --> 00:48:21,039
Speaker 4: You did.

993
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:21,679
Speaker 1: I did.

994
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:25,559
Speaker 5: I'll tell you why, because I do probably use my

995
00:48:25,559 --> 00:48:29,559
phone too much. I'm a big technofile, but I spend

996
00:48:29,599 --> 00:48:33,800
a lot of time in bars with people, or at

997
00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:37,400
the beach bar with people, or in restaurants with people,

998
00:48:37,599 --> 00:48:40,280
or at various homes of our friends with people.

999
00:48:40,679 --> 00:48:43,559
Speaker 6: It really is missus cook who raises your children, isn't it, Charlie.

1000
00:48:43,599 --> 00:48:47,760
Speaker 5: No, No, she's often there too often, and it's you know,

1001
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:52,079
it's a beach town. And most of the time we

1002
00:48:52,159 --> 00:48:56,400
spend there, we are drinking wine. And when I tell

1003
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,239
my doctor this, I get scolded, you see, because I

1004
00:48:59,320 --> 00:48:59,840
drink too much.

1005
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 4: I do.

1006
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:02,599
Speaker 5: I don't drink crazy amount of wine, but I drink

1007
00:49:02,639 --> 00:49:06,800
too much wine. So for once, for once, instead of

1008
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:09,119
being scolded for spending too much time in bars and

1009
00:49:09,159 --> 00:49:12,760
restaurants and at home drinking wine, I was being told

1010
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:16,239
that is the human ideal. That instead of staring at

1011
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:18,519
my phone all of the time. I'm actually doing the

1012
00:49:18,599 --> 00:49:21,760
right thing, which is hanging out with human beings in places,

1013
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:25,159
even if at the time I'm drinking fermented grapes. So

1014
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:27,920
I'm optimistic and place next time my doctor because I

1015
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:29,719
always answer the question. Honestly, I don't know why everyone

1016
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:31,119
tells me I shouldn't, but I think I should, because

1017
00:49:31,119 --> 00:49:32,960
what's the point going to the doctor and she says,

1018
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:34,119
how many glass of wine you have a week? And

1019
00:49:34,159 --> 00:49:35,440
I tell her and then she says, well, it's too many.

1020
00:49:35,559 --> 00:49:37,639
I'm going to say, ah, but but at least I'm

1021
00:49:37,679 --> 00:49:40,199
not a robot. At least I'm not sitting in my

1022
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:41,480
house on my own doing nothing.

1023
00:49:42,679 --> 00:49:45,519
Speaker 1: There you go, excellent idea, and maybe it is a

1024
00:49:45,519 --> 00:49:49,559
bit overblown too. I mean, post Corona places that I

1025
00:49:49,599 --> 00:49:52,239
go to in the weekends and they are packed. There's

1026
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:55,280
lots of people, and there are people talking, and there

1027
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:59,239
are people actually having, you know, gesturing in conversations. There

1028
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:03,320
are people, you know, the Bowling Alleys are back. I mean,

1029
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:06,000
so the idea that we are all just these drones

1030
00:50:06,039 --> 00:50:10,360
walking around bent with our heads cript down is unnerving

1031
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:11,960
and seems to be the future. But then again, you

1032
00:50:12,119 --> 00:50:14,239
go out into the real world and it's full full

1033
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:16,920
of people being people and doing wonderful people things.

1034
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:20,719
Speaker 6: So yeah, man, on this question of defending the things

1035
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:22,280
that are human, we don't have time to go into

1036
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:23,719
it right now. We're coming to the end, I know.

1037
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,559
But isn't one of the first battles going to be

1038
00:50:26,599 --> 00:50:29,039
over the right to drive where you wish?

1039
00:50:29,199 --> 00:50:29,719
Speaker 5: Thank you?

1040
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 1: Yes?

1041
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 6: Is that not coming at us very fast?

1042
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:36,519
Speaker 5: I've written a piece about this a while back which

1043
00:50:36,559 --> 00:50:38,639
I said we might need an amendment to the Constitution

1044
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:43,679
to protect this because really, yeah, because I Charlie, I

1045
00:50:43,679 --> 00:50:44,320
forgive me.

1046
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:47,599
Speaker 6: Let's just stipulate right now. You write more, You write

1047
00:50:47,639 --> 00:50:49,719
faster than I can read, so there will be work

1048
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:50,679
of yours that I've missed.

1049
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 5: It's coming. Well, first off, the technology is coming. They

1050
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:57,400
are huge privacy implications because by definition, the car that

1051
00:50:57,440 --> 00:50:59,000
can drive itself is a card that has to be

1052
00:50:59,039 --> 00:51:03,360
connected to a satellite and tracked. You can't have a

1053
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:06,559
self driving car without having some form of tracking. But

1054
00:51:06,679 --> 00:51:10,800
leaving that aside, it is very obviously going to be

1055
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,639
a point of contention when self driving cars are safer than.

1056
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:16,199
Speaker 4: People.

1057
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 6: And here's where it's here's where it'll start it'll start

1058
00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:20,800
in Los Angeles, or it'll start well, we were talking

1059
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:21,519
about New York.

1060
00:51:22,079 --> 00:51:22,679
Speaker 4: There will be so.

1061
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:25,320
Speaker 1: The the the the New.

1062
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:29,119
Speaker 6: York New Jersey Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the people who run

1063
00:51:30,039 --> 00:51:35,280
the tunnels now will say, listen, we can see to

1064
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:40,000
it that there is never again a traffic jam in Manhattan.

1065
00:51:40,199 --> 00:51:43,360
You will never again have to wait an hour to

1066
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:46,480
get down the helix into the Lincoln Tunnel. We can

1067
00:51:46,559 --> 00:51:48,639
stop at the port authority that just came to me,

1068
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:51,039
the port Authority, the New York and New Jersey Port Authority.

1069
00:51:51,519 --> 00:51:52,840
But here's how we're going to do it.

1070
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:54,079
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1071
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:58,599
Speaker 6: People will plot in their location or the plot in

1072
00:51:58,639 --> 00:52:02,119
their destination. They'll climb into their cars, and we, the

1073
00:52:02,119 --> 00:52:05,519
big computer in the sky, will drive them to their destination,

1074
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:08,239
drop them off. We'll go park the car in Queens.

1075
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:10,400
It'll come back to Manhattan to pick them. We can

1076
00:52:10,519 --> 00:52:14,320
arrange it all. But we can only do this if

1077
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:17,480
everyone submits to the new system. Right, won't it take

1078
00:52:17,519 --> 00:52:18,400
some form like that?

1079
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 1: Yeah?

1080
00:52:19,039 --> 00:52:21,679
Speaker 5: But that also shame us. I mean, every single line

1081
00:52:21,679 --> 00:52:23,960
that is used in favor of, say, gun control, is

1082
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,559
eventually going to be used against people who choose to drive.

1083
00:52:26,679 --> 00:52:29,079
And all of the same emotional black mail, and they're

1084
00:52:29,119 --> 00:52:33,199
going to say that the victim of a traffic accident

1085
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:35,880
had this bright future ahead of them. And because there's

1086
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:39,159
sort of selfish, anti Deiluvian types who want to make

1087
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:42,280
up for their lack of manhood by driving their car themselves,

1088
00:52:42,639 --> 00:52:44,880
then it's just I could just see it coming. It's

1089
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:48,000
absolutely inevitable, and I have great faith in the American

1090
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:49,679
people to repel it. But I think they're going to

1091
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:51,039
have to be clever in the way they do it.

1092
00:52:53,519 --> 00:52:55,599
Speaker 6: Okay, more to come or more already written in your

1093
00:52:55,599 --> 00:52:58,039
piece in a r on this, So give me is

1094
00:52:58,079 --> 00:53:00,719
this than the last month of the last three years

1095
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:02,199
or Weland didn't I think?

1096
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:07,079
Speaker 1: Oh really, Okay, we were talking about fifteen minute cities

1097
00:53:07,119 --> 00:53:09,679
a while ago, a couple of podcasts back. As a

1098
00:53:09,679 --> 00:53:11,880
matter of fact, Charlie, you were there, I believe it was,

1099
00:53:12,559 --> 00:53:14,920
And there's somebody on Twitter said, yeah, it was interesting.

1100
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:17,119
There were saying Loto was talking about fifteen minute cities,

1101
00:53:17,159 --> 00:53:20,280
but then started going off into crazy talk about, you know,

1102
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:24,320
forbidding usage of cars during certain times and all that.

1103
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:29,119
I wanted to No, it's it's not ridiculous conspiracy stuff

1104
00:53:29,119 --> 00:53:31,320
at all. So it's actually being advocated by people as

1105
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:33,800
it means, as Peter just said, of alleviating traffic congestion

1106
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:37,679
and the rest of it. And again Charlie's right, the

1107
00:53:37,679 --> 00:53:40,960
gun control arguments will be used. So you seriously think

1108
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:43,440
you should have the rights to just get in your

1109
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:46,280
car and sit in tunnel traffic for an hour and

1110
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:48,239
a half. Is that really what you're defending? The right

1111
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:51,039
of you to just mulishly go there and sit in traffic.

1112
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:53,000
Speaker 5: Cause of weapons?

1113
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 1: Yes, weapon, Yes it is. I will defend that.

1114
00:53:58,199 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 4: Boy.

1115
00:53:58,639 --> 00:54:02,480
Speaker 1: That's a whole other note to Perry. Get somebody on

1116
00:54:02,719 --> 00:54:06,079
here soon to talk about urban traffic management, because even

1117
00:54:06,119 --> 00:54:09,440
though that's not a really boring thing, it's fascinating. It

1118
00:54:09,519 --> 00:54:12,800
ties into the mass transit And I mean, we have

1119
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:15,559
a mass transit system around here that people decline to

1120
00:54:15,639 --> 00:54:17,760
use in great numbers because it has been overrun by

1121
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:20,400
vagrants and people who are using drugs, and people who

1122
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:23,559
are coming on with boomboxes and smoking odoriferous weed and

1123
00:54:24,239 --> 00:54:27,960
glaring at everybody, and because they didn't have the police

1124
00:54:28,119 --> 00:54:30,119
or the will or the police and the will to

1125
00:54:30,159 --> 00:54:33,760
send somebody through to sweep them out for non payment

1126
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:38,079
of tickets or just gross general behavior. They became untenable,

1127
00:54:38,119 --> 00:54:40,039
and in the winter time, of course, the people will say, well,

1128
00:54:40,079 --> 00:54:42,880
you can't throw them off because they will freeze, and

1129
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:45,360
so they become rolling homeless shelters, and nobody wants to

1130
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,400
use them. And we've spent billions and billions of dollars

1131
00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:51,440
on this and will continue to do so. Speaking of transportation, though,

1132
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:54,079
before we leave, I understand that Peter has a question

1133
00:54:54,199 --> 00:54:57,159
for Charlie about roller coasters.

1134
00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:02,079
Speaker 6: Oh, yes, Charlie, Charlie whom I file on X, I

1135
00:55:02,199 --> 00:55:05,800
finally trained myself. Here we have this whole show. We've

1136
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:08,960
devoted an entire show to saying we spend too much

1137
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:11,199
time with the phone in our hands. And here I

1138
00:55:11,199 --> 00:55:13,519
am in a closing segment saying, well, of course they

1139
00:55:13,559 --> 00:55:17,239
followed Charlie on X. I do follow Charlie on X.

1140
00:55:17,239 --> 00:55:21,079
And he just took a trip with a kid or

1141
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:24,159
all his children. I can't quite remember it. And it

1142
00:55:24,199 --> 00:55:26,440
was a roller Charlie, just tell us what you were

1143
00:55:26,519 --> 00:55:26,719
up to.

1144
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:29,039
Speaker 5: It was, but no children. Luther ray Abel, who's a

1145
00:55:29,039 --> 00:55:31,599
fellow writer at National Review. He's only ten years younger

1146
00:55:31,599 --> 00:55:33,920
than me. He's not quite young enough to be my kid.

1147
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:36,000
Speaker 1: Oh sorry to me. That makes you both children.

1148
00:55:36,079 --> 00:55:37,719
Speaker 5: Yeah, i'd be proud of him if you're my kid.

1149
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:41,360
But yeah, we took a road trip across America with

1150
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:44,280
the purpose of riding roller coasters and maybe this actually

1151
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:46,559
is a good place to finish the podcast because we

1152
00:55:46,679 --> 00:55:49,400
set certain rules for ourselves on this road trip. So

1153
00:55:49,519 --> 00:55:53,320
these rules were as far as First off, we did

1154
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:58,800
use only paper maps from TRIPAA, no satellite navigation. Second,

1155
00:55:58,880 --> 00:56:02,039
we weren't allowed to look up anywhere that we were

1156
00:56:02,079 --> 00:56:05,119
going ahead of time. We weren't allowed to book anywhere.

1157
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:08,519
We weren't allowed to reserve anything. Third, we weren't allowed

1158
00:56:08,519 --> 00:56:11,760
to use any chains for lodging or food. You can't

1159
00:56:11,760 --> 00:56:13,599
really do that with gas stations, it'd be very difficult,

1160
00:56:13,679 --> 00:56:17,840
but we did do it with food and lodging. We

1161
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:21,880
were not allowed to stream anything, so all playlists had

1162
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:24,519
to be compiled ahead of time or we used local radio.

1163
00:56:25,119 --> 00:56:28,480
And in a moment of great genius from Lutha, to

1164
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:32,159
add some eccentricity, we wore Hawaiian shirts the whole time.

1165
00:56:33,639 --> 00:56:37,000
We drove from Well, we were supposed to drive from

1166
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:38,920
New York, but we ended up driving from Richmond, which

1167
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:40,719
was between where he was in New York and where

1168
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:43,639
I was in Jacksonville because my flight got canceled. We

1169
00:56:43,679 --> 00:56:46,639
went to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania. We went up to

1170
00:56:46,679 --> 00:56:51,719
see the Point Sandusky, Ohio, six Flags Great America in Gurney, Illinois,

1171
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:54,760
then to Chicago. Then we flew unfortunately because the drive

1172
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:57,000
was too long for the time, we had to California

1173
00:56:57,400 --> 00:56:59,920
and we drove down the coast. We went to Magic

1174
00:57:00,039 --> 00:57:04,360
Mountain in Santa Clarita, ended up in Anaheim, at Disneyland

1175
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:08,000
in Los Angeles, and then went home and we rode

1176
00:57:08,079 --> 00:57:11,559
roller coaster after roller coaster after roller coaster. It was

1177
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:14,360
it was a gonzo road trip. Peter, I loved it.

1178
00:57:14,559 --> 00:57:17,880
Speaker 6: How does disney Land stand up to disney World.

1179
00:57:18,440 --> 00:57:21,000
Speaker 5: Well, it's much, much, much smaller, but it still has

1180
00:57:21,039 --> 00:57:24,119
a charm of the original nineteen fifty five parks. So

1181
00:57:24,159 --> 00:57:26,079
we had a great time. But disney World is the

1182
00:57:26,119 --> 00:57:28,960
size of San Francisco. I mean, it's just absolutely enormous.

1183
00:57:29,280 --> 00:57:30,639
Speaker 1: Is the favorite roller coaster?

1184
00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:37,519
Speaker 5: I would say either Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point or

1185
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:40,840
give us a stage. It's in Sandusky, Ohio.

1186
00:57:41,679 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 1: Got it, got it all Wildcats.

1187
00:57:43,800 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 5: Revenge at Hershey Park in Pennsylvania.

1188
00:57:46,199 --> 00:57:48,639
Speaker 6: Okay, and last question from me, because James is our

1189
00:57:48,639 --> 00:57:51,480
pop culture maven, but I'm going to get this one in.

1190
00:57:52,280 --> 00:57:54,440
Speaker 1: Did you feel this is a very fast trip and

1191
00:57:54,480 --> 00:57:55,760
you were going to theme parks?

1192
00:57:56,199 --> 00:58:00,639
Speaker 6: Were you still able to feel regional? It's the term

1193
00:58:00,719 --> 00:58:04,960
everybody's using these days, vibe shifts. Did the Midwest feel

1194
00:58:05,079 --> 00:58:08,119
different from the East Coast? And did California still feel

1195
00:58:08,199 --> 00:58:10,800
different from everywhere else in America?

1196
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:12,840
Speaker 5: Hugely? And one of the reasons for that is that

1197
00:58:12,880 --> 00:58:17,199
we weren't able to just stay on the freeway and

1198
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:20,119
go one mile east to west of it. We had

1199
00:58:20,159 --> 00:58:24,679
to go into towns because that's where independently owned motels

1200
00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:28,559
and restaurants and bars and such are right and so

1201
00:58:28,960 --> 00:58:30,639
you know, you don't just feel like you're driving up

1202
00:58:30,679 --> 00:58:32,880
ninety five, which is very boring. You actually do see

1203
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:35,519
different architecture and people and cultures and hear different accents,

1204
00:58:35,559 --> 00:58:38,079
but you don't do if you just drive, stop at

1205
00:58:38,079 --> 00:58:40,360
the best Western and eat It's ruby Tuesdays.

1206
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:42,480
Speaker 4: Fair enough.

1207
00:58:44,039 --> 00:58:46,719
Speaker 1: You didn't wear animal skin prints during this whole thing

1208
00:58:46,719 --> 00:58:47,159
any curve?

1209
00:58:48,280 --> 00:58:48,559
Speaker 4: No?

1210
00:58:48,719 --> 00:58:49,719
Speaker 5: Why?

1211
00:58:49,280 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 4: Why?

1212
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:52,079
Speaker 1: Well, it's sort of like the underfrozen Caveman coming out.

1213
00:58:52,480 --> 00:58:54,679
I mean, it's so archaic and it's wonderful. I admire

1214
00:58:54,760 --> 00:58:57,280
all of this, and I wish you'd taken a fifty

1215
00:58:57,280 --> 00:58:59,599
seven belair to do the trip. I mean part of

1216
00:58:59,719 --> 00:59:01,840
when you don't stream, you have to rely on what

1217
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:04,440
the airways provide you when it comes to music. And

1218
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:06,840
I'm old enough to remember driving around and not you know,

1219
00:59:07,039 --> 00:59:09,559
FM radio wasn't in your car yet, so you're completely

1220
00:59:09,559 --> 00:59:12,840
dependent on what correctly them radio station you can find.

1221
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:15,880
And it would mean, of course that the hip important

1222
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:19,000
music of your youth might be rare to find in

1223
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:20,880
the middle of a state somewhere, And so you would

1224
00:59:20,880 --> 00:59:22,920
come across the station that was doing the you know,

1225
00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:26,320
the the agg report at noon, hogs and barrels standing steady,

1226
00:59:26,599 --> 00:59:29,400
followed by a swap meet, and then you might hear

1227
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:33,760
woofy John's whoopy John's will Fard's polka band or something,

1228
00:59:33,760 --> 00:59:35,719
and you hear that upa oompa for a while until

1229
00:59:35,719 --> 00:59:38,880
it finally faded away behind you, like you'd outrun the signal,

1230
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:40,800
and then you'd pick up something from the next town.

1231
00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:44,199
And it was great, It was wonderful. And if you

1232
00:59:44,239 --> 00:59:48,559
were on the road, you know, traveling doing town totown

1233
00:59:48,639 --> 00:59:51,239
jobs like I was back in seventy nine when I

1234
00:59:51,280 --> 00:59:54,519
was an itinerant seed salesman for North of king Yes,

1235
00:59:54,519 --> 00:59:57,039
you would try to find those little motels that you

1236
00:59:57,079 --> 00:59:59,639
could get into cheap, and you realize the importance of

1237
00:59:59,639 --> 01:00:03,880
the ne unsigned as an enticement, and you find, I mean,

1238
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:06,679
that much sign means it's probably out of my price range.

1239
01:00:06,719 --> 01:00:08,960
This much sign means it fits in the per diem.

1240
01:00:09,320 --> 01:00:11,280
You hope for the one where it's his vacancy, and

1241
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:14,199
that the no hasn't been illuminated. It's a whole different thing.

1242
01:00:14,239 --> 01:00:20,320
And the art of the motel sign is something gone lost, bandoned.

1243
01:00:20,320 --> 01:00:22,280
We just threw it away and now it's nothing but

1244
01:00:22,320 --> 01:00:26,320
a series of interchangeable corporate plates that even Holiday Inn,

1245
01:00:26,360 --> 01:00:29,480
for God's sake, Holiday Inn had one of the most recognizable,

1246
01:00:29,519 --> 01:00:32,519
fantastic googie pieces of abstract sculpture ever to dot the

1247
01:00:32,559 --> 01:00:35,559
side of the country, the great sign of Holiday Inn.

1248
01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:37,199
When you look at it, it's absurd.

1249
01:00:37,320 --> 01:00:38,400
Speaker 4: It's got this arrow.

1250
01:00:38,159 --> 01:00:40,800
Speaker 1: That points this way. It's got this chimney that comes

1251
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:42,800
up with a star at the top of it, and

1252
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:45,440
this wonderful unique script and then a space for words

1253
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:47,679
which is inevitably telling you that the elks are meeting

1254
01:00:47,679 --> 01:00:48,599
there on Tuesday morning.

1255
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:50,480
Speaker 4: It was beautiful.

1256
01:00:51,199 --> 01:00:55,679
Speaker 1: The Howard Johnson iconography. Would I mean this color of

1257
01:00:55,679 --> 01:00:58,039
this combination color of orange and turquoise, which would go

1258
01:00:58,159 --> 01:01:01,320
back to thirty eight, thirty nine, to the World's Fairs

1259
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:05,639
of the thirties, brought into the sixties with some space

1260
01:01:05,679 --> 01:01:08,800
age styling and the rest of it the roadside architectural

1261
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:12,559
visual vernacular of America before the chains completely homogenized. It

1262
01:01:12,639 --> 01:01:16,880
was a thing of absolute chaotic, wonderful beauty. And we

1263
01:01:17,239 --> 01:01:20,360
just got rid of it because the chains marched over

1264
01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:22,679
absolutely everything. Andy s Holiday Inn was a chain, but

1265
01:01:22,719 --> 01:01:25,360
they still had some verb and pash when they did it. Charles,

1266
01:01:25,719 --> 01:01:29,320
great idea, This should be a movie, like you know,

1267
01:01:29,639 --> 01:01:32,840
like Steve Coogan driving around the countryside, arguing and doing

1268
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:34,880
impressions in the sort. So you can't wait to read

1269
01:01:34,880 --> 01:01:37,639
that piece, Peter, can't wait to read what you are

1270
01:01:37,679 --> 01:01:38,039
working on?

1271
01:01:38,119 --> 01:01:39,639
Speaker 4: What are you working on? Before we leave?

1272
01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:42,519
Speaker 6: I'm working on digging out.

1273
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:43,480
Speaker 1: I was away.

1274
01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:46,760
Speaker 6: That trip to Europe lasted so long that I came

1275
01:01:46,800 --> 01:01:49,559
back to a veritable everest of stuff. I still have

1276
01:01:50,199 --> 01:01:52,719
thirty emails to reply to. I'll start working on something

1277
01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:56,559
on Mondays. Thirty emails to reply to. Well, no but thirty,

1278
01:01:56,920 --> 01:01:58,920
Oh no, no, I've weeded out the hundreds of nonsense.

1279
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:01,079
Speaker 1: Oh okay, thirty things I.

1280
01:02:01,039 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 6: Really need to think about and maybe even drag it replies.

1281
01:02:04,159 --> 01:02:04,639
Speaker 4: To for us.

1282
01:02:04,800 --> 01:02:06,920
Speaker 1: My email box, instead of having numbers, just has a

1283
01:02:06,920 --> 01:02:08,280
little infinity sign on it.

1284
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:08,440
Speaker 2: Now.

1285
01:02:09,639 --> 01:02:11,079
Speaker 6: Oh, by the way, I have a correction to a

1286
01:02:13,519 --> 01:02:17,280
note from Sun Nico, who is in the Navy, and

1287
01:02:17,360 --> 01:02:19,679
in the last podcast, I think I'm mouthed off about

1288
01:02:19,719 --> 01:02:22,639
how the United States Navy has been running nuclear reactors

1289
01:02:22,639 --> 01:02:25,840
safely for six decades, and Nico says, and why can't

1290
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:28,079
we study up on them when we need nuclear energy?

1291
01:02:28,159 --> 01:02:32,360
Nico reminds me overall valid argument, but on a naval

1292
01:02:32,440 --> 01:02:35,320
vessel it can move away from bad weather. Fine, I

1293
01:02:35,360 --> 01:02:38,960
take the correction. I salute Ensign Nico Robinson, thank you

1294
01:02:39,000 --> 01:02:41,480
for permitting me to correct the record. Go ahead, James,

1295
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:42,079
wrap it up.

1296
01:02:42,559 --> 01:02:44,880
Speaker 1: While the number of tornado strikes and a nuclear reactor

1297
01:02:44,880 --> 01:02:46,639
around here at ben zero doesn't mean it's not going

1298
01:02:46,719 --> 01:02:49,639
to happen, but I'm not particularly worried about our own

1299
01:02:49,679 --> 01:02:51,880
one going up. I am, however, worried about the people

1300
01:02:51,880 --> 01:02:53,679
who will listen to this podcast and not go to

1301
01:02:53,719 --> 01:02:54,199
Apple and.

1302
01:02:54,159 --> 01:02:55,679
Speaker 4: Give us five stars. What's the matter with you?

1303
01:02:56,119 --> 01:02:59,000
Speaker 1: I would like to thank everybody for listening and going

1304
01:02:59,039 --> 01:03:01,760
to Ricochet and up saying where's this place been all

1305
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:04,880
my life? Well, it's been waiting for you. And after

1306
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:06,960
seven hundred and ten episodes, if you can't go and

1307
01:03:07,199 --> 01:03:09,360
phone me up and join the member side, I don't

1308
01:03:09,360 --> 01:03:11,519
know what I can do except come.

1309
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:13,679
Speaker 4: Back for number seven eleven and try it all again.

1310
01:03:13,719 --> 01:03:15,960
Speaker 1: It's been fun, gentlemen. Can't wait to do it next week.

1311
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:17,639
Have a great weekend, everybody, and we'll see you all

1312
01:03:17,679 --> 01:03:20,920
in the comments at Ricochet four point zero next week. Boys,