Ep. 237: quantifying the vibes

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Just, just indulge me, please, Corrigan. [00:00:07] Speaker B: I will. Happily. [00:00:08] Speaker A: Listeners, just in time honored tradition, when I try and approach something from a real kind of an angle, and I try and put some work into thinking things through and pulling on threads and exploring ideas, I'm. It's never as glossy as Corrigan makes it seem. Right. It's doesn't come as easily to me as it does with Corrigan seemingly. Right. [00:00:38] Speaker B: All right, interesting. [00:00:39] Speaker A: My theses are always a little rough around the edges, but what you're seeing here is somebody struggling with concepts in real time before you. Right. And I hope there's some beauty in that. You know, I learn things in real time just as I speak these through. I don't come, I don't hit record with the answers ready in my head. Right. I. I like to see if they're there. I'm a process guy. [00:01:07] Speaker B: It's true. Yes. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Do you understand? [00:01:10] Speaker B: I think this lends to. Why like when you pick a story for the cold open, it's often open ended. You want to like work through it. You're like, yes, let's. Let's think this through where I'm like, let's get to the. Do you know the end? Let's. [00:01:23] Speaker A: I've. I've kind of. I've. A little tiny light bulb has gone off then and just as quickly it's gone back out. But it went off for a second when I. Because that is true all through my life. The process to me is easily as important, if not more so than the product. This is true of my processes. When I would, when I would kind of rehearse theater. The fucking production is bullshit. Who gives a fuck about the audience turning up and saying, gawping at you. I don't care about any of that. It's what you do on the way there. It's the work. [00:02:00] Speaker B: The work that in the words of the. The great poet Miley Cyrus, it's the climb. [00:02:06] Speaker A: It's the climb. It's the journey, it's the process. It's the friends we make along the way. Right? That's the important thing, not the fucking end product. So what you're hearing here, darlings, I love that you're here. Don't get me wrong. I love that you've pressed play. God, I'm grateful, but I really care. [00:02:24] Speaker B: Right, Right, Yes. [00:02:26] Speaker A: So all of that preamble, preambled. I have lately been preoccupied, as you'll know, with thoughts of collapse. Yes, yes. With thoughts of societal collapse. Something else about me. Not only am I a process Guy. I am also known as a vibes kind of guy as well. Right. Often to my detriment, particularly in work, when I am advancing ideas or decisions about what needs to be done. Da, da, da, da, da. I'm not as bad as I was, but I lack a layer of data and rigor to my. To my decisions. Right, yeah, listen, I'll back that up by also saying, on the other hand, that I'm pretty much always right. [00:03:26] Speaker B: You've got a good sense of vibes. [00:03:28] Speaker A: And I also often find that six months later, people catch up with what I was saying six months previous. I'm usually fucking. Usually I'm right all of the time. Right. But I can't. I can't. I find. I struggle to quantify why. [00:03:44] Speaker B: Right, exactly. You can't articulate, like, oh, these are the data points that have brought me to this. You're like, there is a pattern. [00:03:51] Speaker A: Yes. [00:03:51] Speaker B: That's happening and you're observing. [00:03:54] Speaker A: To me, it feels like a waste of my time because I know things to be true. I don't need to prove anything. Fuck off. Just listen to what I'm saying and do it, please, exactly how I want, and then things will be a lot better. [00:04:07] Speaker B: Sure. [00:04:08] Speaker A: However, all that to say. I really. I wanted to try and add some, you know, some detail behind the vibes, because I feel it. I feel the sense of collapse. And you do. And I've said it before, friends out there in the Joag universe, you feel it all, so I know you do. It's in the fucking. [00:04:27] Speaker B: We were sitting here before this show talking about your sleep problems and trying to be like, why, for the past three years, have I had such a hard time sleeping? I don't know. World in collapse. [00:04:38] Speaker A: Well, yeah, listen, that's not gonna help. That's not gonna help, obviously. But that's another story for another time, but go on. So obviously, I'm only going to talk about things from a UK centric point of view. I only. I wouldn't deign to try to talk about things from your perspective, but do chime in. Right, sure. [00:04:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:56] Speaker A: I'm gonna. I'm gonna start with an analogy. When we had a little extra bit of the house built last year. Ever since then, every couple of weeks, the boiler will switch off. Right. For the house because we've added an extra couple of radiators and the boiler can't cope with the additional load. Right. [00:05:15] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. [00:05:16] Speaker A: It was fine to start with, but we expanded and now it can't cope anymore. [00:05:25] Speaker B: I see it. [00:05:26] Speaker A: And there's Something there. Think along that analogy with me. Something that was great at one time for a particular type of scale and a particular type of society and a particular type of needs of its people and its population, but it's been bolted onto and added onto and stretched and compressed and eked out that it's no longer fit for purpose whilst being fundamentally unchanged. That is the view that I think. That is the view. That is the angle that I take when I talk about societal collapse. Okay. Because you can't. Where. Where are the stress points that you're seeing currently? Corrigan, When I say the signs of stress are undeniable, where are they that you see from your perspective? Not in an abstract sort of sense. What you physically see socially, which indicates to you that things are fucking cracking. [00:06:28] Speaker B: Mmm. I mean, that's obviously in the United States there's a lot of obvious ways, considering we are very rapidly descending into a fully fascist. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Yes. [00:06:42] Speaker B: Country. So the. Socially. The degree of things breaking. [00:06:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:50] Speaker B: Is extremely evident just in terms of whether that's institutionally or the way that people sort of talk about social issues and whatnot. I mean, I think the evidence of that is. Is kind of. [00:07:06] Speaker A: Yeah. As it is on a social perspective level. [00:07:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Politically, we're on the brink of something absolutely awful in a. In an election or two's time. You know, using the by now tried and true Mark Lewis method of future prediction, my algorithm is perfect. It works pretty much infallibly in 2025. All you do is to predict at a future event. You think of the worst possible outcome and it'll be that. [00:07:33] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:35] Speaker A: But I. The first thing I want to do is speak from an economic point of view. Right. [00:07:40] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Because that is a big foundation for a lot of this kind of populist political fucking horseshit that we're seeing right now. The guise of this grab for economic stability. [00:07:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Huge one. Absolutely. [00:07:56] Speaker A: It occurs to me that debt, for the fucking longest time, like decades, is, if not more, has been almost just a kind of piece of sleight of hand to mask deeper issues. Right. If. Do you know what the national debt of the US Is? [00:08:26] Speaker B: I don't. [00:08:27] Speaker A: Of your economic output? [00:08:30] Speaker B: I don't know. It gets talked about a lot, but I wouldn't even begin. [00:08:35] Speaker A: Take a stab. [00:08:36] Speaker B: Like, literally not even like the beginning of it. I don't do numbers of any kind, so I have no clue. [00:08:42] Speaker A: All right, fine. What if I told you that your national debt in the US is roughly 124% of your entire economic output? [00:08:54] Speaker B: I had a feeling it Was like going to be over 100%. I just didn't know how far over. [00:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And here in the uk, it's around about a hundred percent. Crazy that. [00:09:08] Speaker B: That seems untenable. [00:09:09] Speaker A: Fucked. Yeah, that's fucked. For both of our societies at a governmental level, there is more going out than we're generating. Right, right. Unsustainable. Here in the uk, our debt has. The last time our debt was this high was immediately after the Second World War. [00:09:33] Speaker B: Wow. [00:09:34] Speaker A: Right. Our national debt hasn't been higher since World War II. But the fucking world of 2025 is very, very different to the world of the 1940s and 1950s. Economic growth is fucking minuscule. The, the, the kind of, the approach for paying that debt down just simply doesn't exist here. [00:09:58] Speaker B: I mean, famously, you know, in the United States in particular. But I think in most of the countries on the side that won. [00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:06] Speaker B: There's a boom. [00:10:07] Speaker A: Yes. [00:10:08] Speaker B: After this. Right. Like you. And there's recovery as industries are built around, you know, trying to rebuild things and to, you know, get back things from the countries that, you know, were on the other side. And so that war debt has kind of turned into a boon instead. Right. Like, we were able to build society back up and then create like all kinds of safety nets and things like that in the wake of World War II, as opposed to now. Whatever debt we're in, like, we're not, we're not in a place where someone owes us something. We're not in a place where we're like, oh, now, now all these new industries are popping up with new opportunities for. [00:11:01] Speaker A: Absolutely not. [00:11:03] Speaker B: The opposite of that is happening. Yeah. [00:11:06] Speaker A: Opportunities are disappearing as we'll get to shortly. It's a completely different picture in terms of energy generation as well. Subsidies for fossil fuels and so on, more to come. But it isn't just, you know, the picture of national debt is, is just kind of one side of the coin. Because at domestic level as well, at household level, it's also fucked just on a personal level. So consumer debt in the US is a princely 17 and a half trillion dollars. [00:11:38] Speaker B: Nice. [00:11:39] Speaker A: Incredible. Since 2003, adjusted for inflation, household debt has gone up by 50%. Yeah, yeah, mad, mad. Here in the UK, right, the debt to income ratio on average across the United Kingdom is 117% debt to income ratio. [00:12:07] Speaker B: So most people are more. Are spending more than they are coming in by more than 100%. [00:12:15] Speaker A: Yes. [00:12:17] Speaker B: Oi. How. Oh, yeah, yeah. That stresses me out to even think about. I mean, if you think about like my student loan Debt, then, yeah, that actually adds up. But in terms of like consumer debt, Mortgages. Yeah. [00:12:32] Speaker A: You know, credit, 117%, household debt to income ratio. Let me just fucking let that sit with you. [00:12:42] Speaker B: Wild again. Seems untenable. [00:12:46] Speaker A: Seems like, doesn't it? Where's the plan here? What's the plan? [00:12:49] Speaker B: Yeah, what do we, how do we. [00:12:52] Speaker A: What's the plan here? [00:12:53] Speaker B: Wrap our heads around what if I see exactly that is. And how we deal with it. [00:12:58] Speaker A: Plan is to get worse. Gen Z, millennials, Cost of education way higher. Student loans way higher housing markets that they cannot fucking break into less wealth than their fucking parents did at the same age. Right. [00:13:16] Speaker B: By a long shot. [00:13:17] Speaker A: By not even a fucking, you know, not. And it ain't even close. The gulf in wealth between what our parents and their parents were able to afford and what we can afford is fucking chasm. It's a fucking void. [00:13:31] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:33] Speaker A: The promise, I guess, of, would you call it upward mobility. Social mobility is a myth, a complete myth. So let's talk a little bit more about. I mentioned energy. Right? [00:13:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:48] Speaker A: So. And this is, this is, this is where I'm talking things out, as in real time here. [00:13:56] Speaker B: Okay. [00:13:57] Speaker A: Industrial revolution changed the, the way that societies had kind of generated enough energy to live in the present day. That makes sense. [00:14:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:10] Speaker A: So throughout tribal history, pre industrial Revolution, you had societies who were running on that day's energy plant. You know, sunlight capture. [00:14:22] Speaker B: Yeah, the sun. Yeah, right. [00:14:23] Speaker A: Dams built up. Dams, water, potential energy. But the discovery of coal, the Industrial Revolution, that was a fucking huge turning point. The exploitation of oil broke all that paradigm completely to bits. Right? The, the, the, the way that I've, that I've found it discovered today. Right? The way that I found it described today. What if I told you that a single barrel of oil, think of it like this, the potential energy, one barrel of oil contains the equivalent potential energy of fucking thousands of hours of human fucking labor. [00:15:02] Speaker B: Okay? [00:15:03] Speaker A: Right, yeah. And there is a metric that you can measure the quality of energy generation. It's called EROI energy return on investment. [00:15:14] Speaker B: Okay. [00:15:15] Speaker A: That is the ratio between the units of energy you invest in kind of extracting and processing an energy source versus how many units of energy you get. [00:15:27] Speaker B: Back you get out of it. Yeah, sure. [00:15:29] Speaker A: Right. And that has plummeted since the early days. It's fucking plummeted since the early days of oil exploitation. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Okay. [00:15:39] Speaker A: If you've got a higher EROI energy return on investment, you've got a fucking surplus. You've got net energy that you can use socially for infrastructure and science. And medicine and you know, social welfare. The, the boffins say that to kick to, to sustain a complex industrial society, you need a kind of a minimum energy return on investment of seven to one. Right. So for every one unit of energy you, you, you expend on mining or refining, you get seven back, right? [00:16:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:22] Speaker A: Now back to the 1930s in the US, right? Oil fucking city. Just an absolute oil boom. High octane, good fucking quality post war oil. And back in the 30s you could expect an energy return on investment of like 100 to 100. [00:16:43] Speaker B: Wow. [00:16:44] Speaker A: Barrels worth of oil gets you a hundred fucking units of energy back one to a hundred. High octane. Like I said, good fucking quality. But by the 70s, by the 70s, when the real good shit has just been absolutely raped and pillaged and we're now into fucking fracking, you know what I mean? Shale fucking rocks. And drilling. Deep ocean drilling. More intense energy fucking sapping. [00:17:15] Speaker B: Yeah, deep the processes exactly as energy or more energy draining than what you're getting back out of it. [00:17:23] Speaker A: By the 70s in the US your energy return on investment had dropped to 30 to 1. And globally. Globally today we are estimating somewhere between 10 and 20 to 1. And it's still going down. [00:17:40] Speaker B: I mean this isn't a thing that I've always found interesting too and is part of why, you know, coal industries and things like that push so hard to like maintain their supremacy in the world. Because they aren't profitable. [00:17:55] Speaker A: No. [00:17:56] Speaker B: Right. Like it's not, it is not something that we can sustain environmentally. And in terms of what you're talking about here, energy output versus, you know, what we get out of it. Yep. It is not actually a profitable thing to do. The more profitable thing to do would be to actually look into like environmental, more environmentally sound sustainable practices. Because those things you get that better return and you're not, you know, putting so much money and energy into the process of extraction. [00:18:30] Speaker A: Yes. [00:18:31] Speaker B: But the industries don't want to change. [00:18:34] Speaker A: So we can keep doing it exactly this, even though the return on investment in terms of cash and energy is going off a cliff. [00:18:42] Speaker B: And yeah, down, down, down. [00:18:44] Speaker A: What I also read is that it's a big drop from, you know, 100 to 1 EROI to 50 or 1 is tiny in terms of the net energy that you lose. But as the numbers get lower, the effect gets more dramatic. You know, going from 10 to 1 to 5 to 1, the amount of your energy you are pumping in just to produce more, the cost skyrockets, you know, the, the rate of progress plummets. The Surplus that you've got available to run the rest of your society. Absolutely. Skydives. Sorry. Yeah. Plummets. And we are. And that's happening. That's happening in real time. [00:19:23] Speaker B: Mmm, cool. [00:19:26] Speaker A: So massive debt, huge problems with continued reliance on energy generation, which is falling off a cliff. Doesn't sound great, does it? [00:19:35] Speaker B: No. And to, you know, add on to your sort of economic issues here with the debt and whatnot, to come from an American perspective as well. You know, we have the tariff situation, which is making all of our prices on everything go up. A trip to the grocery store, you know, anything that you need, if you need a TV or a fan or whatever else. We don't make that stuff here. And that is getting passed on to us. On top of it, a job market that has tanked horribly to worse than the 2008 recession. At this point, which is when I graduated and at that time, I always talk about how, you know, there were. If you opened up Craigslist, there would be a job every day. And I ended up working as a business babysitter. [00:20:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:21] Speaker B: A college educated babysitter after I graduated. And now because of this AI bubble that is bound to burst as well. And, you know, all these different things that are happening to try to reduce the amount of humans actually being paid for stuff. [00:20:39] Speaker A: Yes. [00:20:40] Speaker B: You're having people apply for 100, 200 jobs, things like that, and nothing. There's nothing for people. So that's not great for any of this either. [00:20:50] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about wages. Let's talk about earnings. Flat since the 70s across both the States and the United Kingdom. Pretty much flat wage growth since 1970s. And today in the United Kingdom, a millennial at work today will earn 8% less than their Gen X counterpart did at the same age. [00:21:18] Speaker B: Our bootstraps just must be way more expensive. [00:21:21] Speaker A: We need to pull harder. [00:21:24] Speaker B: Pull way harder. [00:21:25] Speaker A: And it's only going to get worse. Of course. There's only one question. [00:21:32] Speaker B: We have not addressed anything that would make any of this go away. [00:21:37] Speaker A: So it's going to get worse as the boomers die. [00:21:41] Speaker B: Mm. [00:21:42] Speaker A: And pass on their hoarded riches. Right. Who are they gonna put. Is that gonna be evenly distributed? Is it Fuck right. [00:21:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:50] Speaker A: This is wealth that isn't going to be spread evenly. It's going to the fucking children of already wealthy families to just fucking keep that inequality nice and ingrained, nice and entrenched. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Yes. This is one of the things that, you know, a lot of times, and I'm sure it's True for you over there as well. But a lot of people in Europe often ask, why are Americans so obsessed with homeownership? [00:22:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:22:23] Speaker B: We do not want to rent here. And the primary reason that we are obsessed with homeownership isn't just like, oh, I need my space or whatever. It's because that is how wealth is passed down in America. [00:22:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:37] Speaker B: We don't have big savings accounts. We don't have a social safety net. We have houses. And this is the only way that our parents can give us something is a house which has equity in it. That means that if something goes wrong, we can sell it, we can use it, we can refinance it to get loans, things like that. So homes, houses in America are wealth. [00:23:05] Speaker A: Yes. [00:23:05] Speaker B: And if people aren't starting with houses like the Millennials and Gen Zers you're talking about. [00:23:11] Speaker A: Yep. [00:23:11] Speaker B: Then they don't have a guaranteed way to pass down wealth or acquire wealth or things like that. [00:23:19] Speaker A: And it's showing up loud and clear in the, in, in politics and in the way people, the cracks that are showing between the way that people relate to the people in power, the way that people relate to their government and their politics. There's. John Benfield will know about these guys. Edelman. Have you heard of the Edelman Trust Barometer? It's a. It's a regular report that surveys respondents about how they feel about those in power, about their rulers, about their prime Minister, and so on. 61% in the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer survey, 61% of respondents hold grievances against government, businesses and the rich. [00:24:06] Speaker B: Right, that's interesting. Yeah. [00:24:08] Speaker A: To quote directly from Edelman, widespread grievance is eroding trust across the board with a sense of distrust for all four institutions, business, government, media, and non governmental organizations. 40% of people who respond say that they approve of hostile action to bring about change. [00:24:30] Speaker B: That's real interesting, isn't it? Mm. [00:24:35] Speaker A: Isn't it? [00:24:35] Speaker B: That's the, that's the inevitability. Right. I think, you know, what all these people in power are doing and why in America, they're trying to consolidate that power so much. Right. Like, you know, smash as much resistance as possible, defund, you know, deport, you know, whatever, criminalize. All of that kind of stuff that they are doing here is because there are more of us than them. And that gap is getting wider and wider. And you have people like Luigi Mangione out there, you know, who most of the United States approved of. [00:25:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:12] Speaker B: You know, that's our Edelman Index or whatever is the fact that most Americans approved of what Luigi Mangione did. [00:25:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:22] Speaker B: That the only thing that can happen with that, if not given an avenue to express that democratically, is for people to say, then this requires hostile action. What else can you do? [00:25:44] Speaker A: Pretty incredible. It isn't just vibes. It isn't just vibes. [00:25:47] Speaker B: No. Yeah. It's there in statistics that people are like, yes, if someone started it, I'd be on board. [00:25:56] Speaker A: I kind of would. Infrastructure. Right. Just, you know, just in the last year in here in the uk, public buildings crumbling, schools, hospitals, courts, libraries closed. [00:26:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Wasn't there like a huge thing with schools? Was it in Wales or. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Oh, it was nationwide. It's not just schools, it's public buildings. I know theaters which are. [00:26:23] Speaker B: I just remember there was like specifically. [00:26:24] Speaker A: A few schools like a year or two ago that was like with shitty concrete, which is always what it was. The end of its, of its lifespan. Same kind of shit going on in the States. You have, you have something called the American Society of Civil Engineers. Corrigan, does that ring a bell? [00:26:43] Speaker B: Oh yeah, absolutely. The people looking after the bridges and all that kind of stuff. Keeping an eye on how. [00:26:49] Speaker A: 42,000 bridges in shitty condition. 1.4 trillion funding gap. [00:26:55] Speaker B: Yep. [00:26:56] Speaker A: Through 2025 alone. [00:26:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's. Infrastructure is one of those things that I think the thing, the phrase that people always use with regards to infrastructure is infrastructure is not sexy. And so politicians do not run on infrastructure. We don't talk about infrastructure until bridges collapse, which happens fairly frequently here. You know, that things fall apart. And we don't discuss why that's happening. You know, we talk about it like it's an act of God or something like that. Instead of like this. Is this, is this stuff having been ignored? [00:27:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:37] Speaker B: For all of this time. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Hope you're enjoying this. There's a phrase, a phrase, a two word phrase I'm going to use here, which I'm going to come back to in a minute. What a beautiful phrase. Popular immiseration. [00:27:50] Speaker B: Okay. [00:27:51] Speaker A: Immiseration. I double M I S E R A T I O N. Immiseration. How miserable are people becoming? That's what that means. The concept of widespread popular immiseration. [00:28:05] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. [00:28:06] Speaker A: The cost of living is astonishing here in the UK. Food bank use higher than it's ever been. In 2015. A charity that deals with food, emergency food supplies, the Trussell trust in the UK. Right. 2025, they gave out 60,000 emergency food parcels up to March this year. 2.9 million in a decade, Crystal May. In a decade, that's gone up from 60,000 to 2.9 million emergency food parcels distributed. [00:28:43] Speaker B: Listen, Marco, did you hear that? There are trans women playing sports. [00:28:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. [00:28:52] Speaker B: So clearly we need to focus on that. [00:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:57] Speaker B: And not any. [00:28:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:28:58] Speaker B: Of this happening. [00:29:00] Speaker A: Well, there we go. I mean, that's. That's another conversation. How. How, you know, how deaf to the sleight of hand is to turn the fucking working classes against one another in the face of this. In the face of this, to make identity fucking politics. What is tearing us apart internally rather than fucking organization and solidarity in the face of all of this fucking horror. [00:29:30] Speaker B: I mean, I think a lot of that about that in terms of places like South Africa or Northern Ireland and things like that were creating a solidarity. The idea of making it so that solidarity doesn't form is how these kinds of governments survive. Right? So like in South Africa during apartheid, it was like, by dividing colored people from black people, you kept colored people and black people from, you know, unifying because, well, colored people were, like, slightly higher on the hierarchy, right? Like, oh, they have slightly more rights, and thus, you know, that keeps them from fully joining the fight with the people at the bottom. And that was a distinct way that, like, the white people were intentionally trying to foment that division. Right. If we give this group of people slightly more rights in this society, then they are not as likely to rise up against us with those other people who there are a lot more of. [00:30:30] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:31] Speaker B: You know, and thinking in, like, Northern Ireland and things like that, the idea of, like, the people in Northern Ireland who class themselves as Brits. [00:30:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:40] Speaker B: Instead of as Irish. Right. And the way that. That creates this sort of solidarity with. With the UK at the expense of people who are, you know, Irish and traditionally Catholic or whatever. You know, obviously religion isn't what that's really about, but that's what they. But that's what they've made of it, right? The idea that, oh, this is about Catholics and Protestants, right. The real issue at the heart of this is Catholics and Protestants not getting along. Fuck is it about that? Right? It's not at all what that's about, but the idea that you divide the working class along arbitrary lines, like, this is a way to make sure that people don't join together and, you know, fight back against the people who are actually the minority who actually causing the. [00:31:30] Speaker A: Problems demonstrably and literally what has happened in the last 40, 50 odd years. [00:31:36] Speaker B: Mm. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Absolute fucking just confected lines of conflict between the majority working class Mm. To fucking distract from all of this. That's. That's literally exactly what has fucking happened. [00:31:56] Speaker B: Interesting. I wonder how, like, you know, a lot of times, looking at what your government is doing now, it often feels like the reflections of the worst parts of American politics. [00:32:08] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. [00:32:10] Speaker B: And when we look at, like, how this developed in the United States and kind of look back at the history of it, a lot of it begins with, like, the. The Christian right in the 70s and 80s who very much used identity, race, things like that, abortion, things like that, to divide people and thus create these political divisions that made it impossible for us to sort of line up together and kept white supremacy the. The law of the land, even in the wake of things like the Civil Rights Act. Yes, and I'm. I'm interested, and I'm not expecting you to have an answer to this, you know, if. But just how much the way that the UK has continued along a similar trajectory over the past 50 years is an adoption of the tactics of the Christian right, or if it developed in its own right out of something else. [00:33:05] Speaker A: Look, it's a great question, and on this I have to respond with vibes. Right, Right. [00:33:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:10] Speaker A: But plenty of times. Plenty of times I have stated my absolute disgust at what I perceive to be the. The kind of purpose of any. Of a political party, at least here in the uk. The purpose of a political party is to maintain power. [00:33:27] Speaker B: Yes. [00:33:28] Speaker A: And nothing else. [00:33:28] Speaker B: It's not to help people or anything like that. [00:33:31] Speaker A: The purpose of a political party is to chip away at the edges when it comes to social change and to affect actual reform and make people's lives better and to slow this fucking rising popular immiseration. But their core purpose is to stay in power. So we're in. [00:33:49] Speaker B: Yeah. You see, like, I think Zoran Mandami. Macdani. Oh, God, I sound like a liberal. Zoran. Mum, Donnie is like, such a huge threat because, you know, the idea is Democrats want to stay in power, and even though Zoron speaks to all the things they claim to be about, he's a socialist and therefore a threat to so power. [00:34:11] Speaker A: So consider this our current government, right, fucking turds that they are, just a few months back, enacted a policy that public bathrooms, public toilets have to be used by people according to their biologically assigned ridiculous genitals. Right? Now, as we've spoken about on this cast before, the press started piping up about trans people, some, you know, maybe 25, 30 years ago, no one gave a right, no one gave a fuck. But that. That split that Social kind of fissure was created entirely artificially by the press for purposes of distraction from exactly what we're talking about here. And now, some 20 odd years later, the government is enacting policies based on affected nonsense that the press fucking ceded a generation previously. So what the fuck is up with that? [00:35:18] Speaker B: Right? [00:35:19] Speaker A: You're addressing, you're addressing completely fucking confected concerns which have been fed to the public by a media and ruling class which no one really asked for and which, you know, which speaks to this fallacy that someone else's existence threatens or invalidates mine. [00:35:41] Speaker B: Right, yeah. [00:35:42] Speaker A: Horse shit from top to bottom. [00:35:46] Speaker B: Mm. Yeah, absolutely. [00:35:49] Speaker A: Meanwhile, fucking schools crumble, wages stagnate and decline, the branches and leaves wilt and rot. The boiler can't handle the radiators. Just to continue. Right, because I'm, I'm, I'm. I've. I've got, I've got more here. I've got more here. [00:36:12] Speaker B: Do it. Yeah, keep, keep quantifying the vibe. Let's do it. [00:36:17] Speaker A: And we are, we are getting, we are getting to the end. This. I apologize. [00:36:21] Speaker B: It's a podcast. This is what people are listening to. [00:36:24] Speaker A: It is, isn't it? It is. [00:36:26] Speaker B: Where are we? This is the point. [00:36:31] Speaker A: I'd like to introduce a name, an author, an historian, an anthropologist from the States, a guy by the name of Joseph Tainter. [00:36:40] Speaker B: Tainter. [00:36:41] Speaker A: Tainter. One who taints T A I N T E r Little bit. A little bit unfortunate. Not as unfortunate as an estate agent whose name was on for sale signs all the way through Cheltenham where we were driving yesterday. Guy by the name of Steven Gooch. Stephen, maybe you should team up with Joseph Tainter. Tainter and Gooch. [00:37:07] Speaker B: Tainter and Gooch. [00:37:08] Speaker A: Tater and Gooch. [00:37:09] Speaker B: Stop. I love it too much. [00:37:15] Speaker A: Anyway, he's still with us anyway. [00:37:16] Speaker B: Tainter. [00:37:17] Speaker A: He's still with us. Joe Tainter. I'm so glad he's getting on a bit. He works out of Utah. Utah State University. [00:37:25] Speaker B: Right, okay. [00:37:29] Speaker A: Seminal 1988 book, the Collapse of Complex Societies. [00:37:34] Speaker B: All right. [00:37:35] Speaker A: And where I think this is relevant to us is his point that even though man is a problem solving society, a problem solving animal, right, and society, our societies are first and foremost, as he says, problem solving organizations. When society faces a challenge historically, the solutions have always been the same, I. E. We add complexity, right? [00:38:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:12] Speaker A: We add a new branch of government. [00:38:15] Speaker B: Right. [00:38:15] Speaker A: We fucking invent a new widget or a new machine. [00:38:19] Speaker B: Mm. [00:38:20] Speaker A: We expand the fucking army. We create specialized jobs. We just add layers of complexity to machines which are already fucked. [00:38:31] Speaker B: Sure. [00:38:32] Speaker A: And on that note, my beautiful fucking graceful, swan like wife has just breezed through the door. She's been at a wedding today and I swear to God, she looks just. If you were to look up MILF in the dictionary, right, you know, you'd see. You'd see Lori Lewis as I see her before me now. Anyway, she's gone. She was having none of that. [00:38:55] Speaker B: Not sure what that had to do. [00:38:56] Speaker A: With the complex systems she was having. She just sees me fucking preaching. Anyway, anyway. Anyway. [00:39:03] Speaker B: Okay, sure. [00:39:04] Speaker A: Anyway. Much like my boiler, right? You add on radiators and it can't cope with the load. [00:39:08] Speaker B: Sure, yeah, yeah. [00:39:10] Speaker A: So again, to quote Tainter, collapse in the face of that repeated tactic isn't just a risk, it becomes a mathematical likelihood. [00:39:24] Speaker B: Mmm. [00:39:25] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:39:27] Speaker B: Mm. [00:39:28] Speaker A: On the other hand, I would also mention some of the thoughts of a Peter Turchin, now, Soviet Union by birth, born in the 50s in the Soviet Union and got a PhD again in the States at Duke University. Right. His point is that societal collapse, just like we've been saying for the past few weeks, it isn't something that happens in a single event. It's a process. It's stress that builds along fault lines, you know, and the three areas, the three areas that he picks out as being the pressure points for societal collapse. First, was this piece popular Immiseration, Right? How hard, how fucking tough can life get for the average Joe before things collapse? [00:40:18] Speaker B: Right? [00:40:20] Speaker A: How? How, How? For how long can somebody watch the rich get even richer? [00:40:27] Speaker B: Mm. [00:40:27] Speaker A: For how long can people feel the weather get fucking hotter and wet bulb events get more and more common before. Before creating what he beautifully refers to as mass mobilization potential. [00:40:43] Speaker B: Mmm. [00:40:44] Speaker A: Right? A growing population who feel that there's nothing to lose. [00:40:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. [00:40:53] Speaker A: Isn't it? Isn't it? [00:40:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:56] Speaker A: His second driver. [00:40:57] Speaker B: Could it get any worse? Guess not. Well, then let's fucking go fucking light. [00:41:01] Speaker A: The rag and go. He also. He also writes at length about something called elite overproduction. So the story of a society that generates too many fucking people who want to be in the 1%, too many people who aspire to be elite without fucking seats at the table enough for them to fill. And he also then talks about fiscal distress. Like I said, wages stagnating, energy fucking generation, costs of living, debt, national debt. So, Corrie, long story short, it isn't the vibes. If you feel things are collapsing, take your fucking pick. Because there are so many genuine demonstrable reasons that you Feel that way. [00:41:56] Speaker B: And I appreciate you, you pointing all of these things out because I, I also don't know if this phrase hit the uk, but, you know, a year ago or so it was very popular for like, economists and stuff like that to say, oh, we're in a vibe session. There's not a real recession going on. You're imagining that. It's just that things feel bad and that's why you think that things are more expensive, that you can't make ends meet, blah, blah, blah, blah. When like, in reality, like, it wasn't vibes. People can't afford to live, they're getting evicted, all kinds of things. A vibe session is what they were calling it to sort of downplay, you know, like, listen, we get that you feel, feel like things are bad, but they're not. Actually. Actually, things are really good. The stock, Stock market looks great. You know, there's no reason why you should feel exactly right. [00:42:51] Speaker A: It's gaslighting. Is it? That is exactly what it is. Large scale corporate gaslighting. Is it vibes? [00:42:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, you don't. It's not that you can't make ends meet, it's just that you, like, feel sad. [00:43:01] Speaker A: 60,000 emergency food packages to nearly 3 million in the space of a decade is that vibe? I don't think. [00:43:07] Speaker B: Yeah, zap vibes. So this idea of actually bringing this quantification to what we have been talking about as a vibe all this time, I think is really important to go. These are not. This is not in your head. This is happening. And I think with everything, what we're seeing is more and more of, like, the organizations full of experts telling us this. But are political parties that are meant, like you said, to maintain power and not to actually help us. So from any side of the aisle, it doesn't matter whether they're liberals or conservatives, they all have a vested interest in telling us, like, don't believe the evidence of your eyes. [00:43:48] Speaker A: There is no clear space right now between conservative labor, the same policies, the. [00:43:55] Speaker B: Same ideologies, they're doing the exact same things. And to be able to have sort of numbers and things like that to back it up. I mean, these are the kinds of things that we're not privy to on the news every night. Right. Like, like we don't see these organizations, like, sounding the alarm, you know, ringing the clacks and whatever to say. Like, hey, like, this is. This is worse. [00:44:17] Speaker A: Yes. [00:44:18] Speaker B: Than you think it is. It's not just happening in your household. This is everywhere. Right now we are on the verge of collapse, while politicians and media are very invested in telling us. No, we're not. You're being hysterical. [00:44:32] Speaker A: Isn't it incredible? [00:44:33] Speaker B: It's incredible. Amazing to see those. [00:44:37] Speaker A: Hear those facts, and one is tempted to kind of ask what the fucking scenarios are. You know, if you were to workshop, right. If you were to kind of just kind of. All right, let's. Let's just sketch this out. How might this resolved? Because what. What. What clearly isn't gonna happen is that it's gonna change or improve. [00:45:01] Speaker B: Right? I mean, that's the. [00:45:03] Speaker A: Surely that's not defeatist to say that. [00:45:05] Speaker B: Surely that's realistic because, you know, that usually my sort of thing is to think like, oh, maybe something can be done. Like, if there are enough people like Zoron out there, primary Democrats or whatever, who really want to make changes, like Kat Abu Ghazale and people like that, primarying people and trying to get into those seats that are held by people who are primarily trying to keep themselves in power and enrich themselves. But at the same time, you know, there was something that someone posted on Instagram the other day, and like, the guy himself, like, when I looked at the rest of his Instagram, was kind of a meh, you know, tech bro y kind of nonsense. But he had talked about how, like, his forecast is 15 years of misery. [00:45:49] Speaker A: Basically, that plenty of times I've heard it described. The role of government in 2025 is that of managed decline. [00:45:57] Speaker B: Mm. Yeah, exactly. And just this idea that the way he projects things is that he thinks, you know, things are going to get worse, and for the next 15 years or so, everything will be horrible in whatever way that manifests. You know, war, famine, climate, disaster, whatever is in. Is happening. You know, there's gonna be 15 years of just misery for humankind that he thinks will rebound after that once we've basically collapsed, right? Like that. What we. What we're in right now is this period of decline that can't necessarily last forever. You know, that simply just isn't how humans work to just be in decline for all time. But, you know, it is inevitable that we are about to be in pain for a good chunk of time. [00:47:01] Speaker A: So cool. And that. That's why you come to this podcast, isn't it? [00:47:06] Speaker B: Isn't it? Oh, we are. Yeah, we're in a. We're in a zone right now. We got the PFAS killing you. We got all of the vibes. [00:47:16] Speaker A: You know, it really feels as though these past couple of weeks, we've found that groove again. I was worried that maybe we'd lost it and that we'd got a little bit soft, you know? [00:47:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:29] Speaker A: But don't you ever think for a minute, listeners, don't you ever think we've lost it. [00:47:34] Speaker B: Right? You. [00:47:40] Speaker A: It's completely fucked. Relentlessly fucked. And we're here every fucking week to tell you that it's fucked and to make sure you get it. Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:47:52] Speaker B: Yes, please do. [00:47:54] Speaker A: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, mise en scene. [00:47:57] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said mise en scene in such a horny way before. [00:48:01] Speaker A: The way I whispered the word sex cannibal receipt. [00:48:04] Speaker B: Worst comes to worst. [00:48:05] Speaker A: Mark. [00:48:05] Speaker B: Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:48:07] Speaker A: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm gonna let it. [00:48:14] Speaker B: You know how I feel about that, Mark? [00:48:16] Speaker A: I think you feel great about it. What I did there was I lifted my glass to my lips and misjudged the approach vector. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:48:30] Speaker A: And just, you know, like an airplane with a guy's. A drinking problem. [00:48:33] Speaker B: Yeah. I say that literally every time I spill something on myself, which is often. [00:48:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Listen. Okay, so we're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna start. We're gonna start with an action. We're gonna start with a call to action from your good friends Mark and Corrigan. Right? [00:48:51] Speaker B: All right. [00:48:53] Speaker A: Something I want you to do, all of you, right now. Like, right first. Now. Don't put it off. Think you'll do it later. Don't think this is some. I actually mean this. I would like you to do this now. I want you to raise your phone up, raise your device up, and open up your podcast app. Even if you're driving. In fact, especially if you're driving right up the police. What? They're gonna do nothing. They'll enjoy it. [00:49:19] Speaker B: It's true. [00:49:19] Speaker A: I want you to go to your podcast app and open up all of the. The kind of the shows that you subscribe to, Right? [00:49:26] Speaker B: Mmm. [00:49:27] Speaker A: And I want you to fucking unsubscribe from all of them except us, because they suck, Right? Fuck them. Guys, I want you to unsubscribe to every other podcast that you follow them off. [00:49:39] Speaker B: You don't need that. [00:49:40] Speaker A: You don't need them right? From now on, starting fucking right now, there's only one podcast, and it's us. It's Jack of all Graves. And to listen to any other podcasts is an act of betrayal. You're either with us or you're against us. And it's time you chose which today, right? [00:50:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:06] Speaker A: How's that? Seems fair, doesn't it? You know what I mean? [00:50:09] Speaker B: I don't think that's asking too much. [00:50:11] Speaker A: For a long time. [00:50:13] Speaker B: I say, in terms of me breaking our own rule here. I started listening to Dateline and Espanol. [00:50:19] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [00:50:21] Speaker B: So it is. They have a Dateline podcast, and, you know, it just basically tells the stories that they tell on the show, but in audio form. But then they came out with a Spanish version of it. And I used to listen to this true crime podcast called Escueda Sangre that I absolutely loved, and something stopped doing it. Blood School. [00:50:41] Speaker A: There we go. [00:50:44] Speaker B: And they. Yeah, they talked about true crime and stuff like that in Spanish, and I absolutely loved it. So I was like, I'm gonna. Nice, and I'm gonna give this a go. [00:50:52] Speaker A: Obviously, I'm full of shit, because I've been listening to some podcasts lately. I'm very into the rest is entertainment. You know, Richard Osmond and Marina Hyde, she was on. [00:51:02] Speaker B: I watched a YouTube video that Richard Osmond came up in yesterday, and I thought of you, which is funny because Richard Osmond should be more me coded, considering how I'm obsessed with his show. But now I associate him with you. [00:51:13] Speaker A: Just so genial, so insightful. And, you know, they aren't perfect. He does show his ass sometimes on, you know, his kind of corporate allegiances and his celebrity friends and so on, but generally just all of the stuff I love. Media books, films, tv, movies. [00:51:31] Speaker B: Just actually, you know what the thing that I saw him on you'll enjoy actually, I was watching a YouTube video about Noel Edmonds and his weird. Yeah, like the secret type manifestation thing or whatever. And it was basically a clip of Richard Osmond calling bullshit on it. Where. [00:51:53] Speaker A: When I say. When I say. [00:51:57] Speaker B: Let me just explain the story to you because I think you're gonna like it. He, like. Noel Edmonds was saying, I guess he. He hosted your Deal or no Deal. He did over there and that. He was explaining about how he'd, like, manifest did this, you know, and that's how he, like, got this job on Deal or no Deal. And Richard Osmond, who I guess was like, producing it or something like that at the time, was like, that's not what happened. He. He auditioned to be the host of Countdown, and we were like, that's not really a good fit for Noel Edmonds. So we were starting Deal or no Deal and we were like, he'd probably be a good fit for that. So we put him in that role. There was no man of his. [00:52:35] Speaker A: What you're describing, I think, is a clip from his podcast from a few weeks back and. [00:52:39] Speaker B: Oh, was it? [00:52:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And when. When I say that occasionally his ass hangs out with. With respect to him giving an easy ride to some people he's worked with in the past, it is exactly Noel Edmonds that I was thinking of. Oh, how funny they were. They were discussing no Limans and Osmond almost gave him a very, very easy ride. [00:52:58] Speaker B: Didn't mention. [00:52:59] Speaker A: Didn't mention his, you know, killing someone. Didn't know. Didn't even nod or allude in the slightest. Most, you know, elliptical terms about the death. Didn't mention him arguing with a cancer sufferer on Twitter about how maybe, well, maybe your diet is wrong or you aren't manifesting properly. You know what I mean? [00:53:22] Speaker B: This YouTube video went into all that. [00:53:24] Speaker A: Yes, but. But Osman gave him a complete pass on all of that. And it was, it was icky. But I'll tell you what, I'll say. [00:53:30] Speaker B: Except apparently the manifestation thing. [00:53:32] Speaker A: I'm also listening to BBC podcast Mariana in Conspiracy Land about exactly as it sounds. Wellness conspiracies. Covid conspiracies. 9, 11 conspiracies. And she's done a series lately about a guy who was quite actively involved with provincial Covid truthers in Shrewsbury. In the. In. [00:53:56] Speaker B: You know, I think, I think I've been there. [00:53:58] Speaker A: You might have been. Beautiful town, picturesque, on the Welsh English border. And this guy was a big Covid truther until he got Covid and died of it. [00:54:13] Speaker B: That happened to a lot of prominent Covid deniers here in, In America as well. Lots of real big ones who were like just immediately died. [00:54:26] Speaker A: Yep. [00:54:26] Speaker B: Yeah. I went to Shrewsbury with Richard. [00:54:28] Speaker A: Ah, there we go. Yeah. And it was a fantastic, fantastic story. Uses. Uses that, that tale of this guy from Shrewsbury as a jumping off point into all of that kind of stuff. [00:54:41] Speaker B: I was just gonna. I was reading the. The description of Shrewsbury on here and I think it mentions. So the description that comes up says something about St. Chad's Church is defined by its unique circular name and St. Mary's Church has elaborate stained glass windows. And I think St. Mary's Church was where we went while we were there. It's right in the description. [00:55:07] Speaker A: Wonderful. [00:55:07] Speaker B: Of Shrewsbury. [00:55:08] Speaker A: Wonderful. [00:55:08] Speaker B: Because we went to this church to see a harpist play, which is very. Richard. She was, she was great. She was American. She had a song about Wawa. It was fun. But it was in this little church with stained glass windows and whatnot. And apparently it was the church that Charles Darwin attended when he was growing up. This was the church that he was raised in. So there was like a plaque on the wall right next to the pew that we were sitting in that was like, this is Charles Darwin's childhood church. Which was pretty neat, I thought. And yes, it's a very pretty little town. Very cute. Lots of little shops and whatnot. Delightful. [00:55:49] Speaker A: Yeah, Shrewsbury is super cute. Something of a national debate. I have heard, I think, as many people in my life who pronounce it Shrewsbury as. Who pronounce it Shrewsbury. So, you know, not to want to inflame any nationalist provincial ill will or rivalries, but I don't know how it's actually pronounced. [00:56:15] Speaker B: Well, the two people that I've heard pronounce it said Shrewsbury. So I feel like we'll go with. We'll go with that. It's not gonna be another bath incident. [00:56:23] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. [00:56:24] Speaker B: This time around. [00:56:25] Speaker A: Sure. Do you know, I think, is it tomorrow that Alien Earth starts? Have you seen the fucking reviews that show is getting? [00:56:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And I. From the moment I saw the first trailer for that, I was like, I'm. I'm in. I'm. And there was like an attempt at doing a hit job on the lead actress, Sidney Chandler, who is Kyle Chandler's daughter. So already I'm predisposed to liking her. But this, it was like Vanity Fair or something like that. Did this piece where she didn't feel like she had, like, control of the interview and stuff like that. So she, like, declined to come to, like, the photo shoot or whatever. And they, like, did this whole piece that made her sound like she was super difficult and, you know, like, oh, like, how dare she? And, like, she had a list of questions she didn't want us to ask and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, that's pretty reasonable. And it sounds like you were being difficult about it. And she decided she didn't want to be a part of this. Like, that seems fine to me. And that made me like her even more. [00:57:32] Speaker A: So 100%. Don't care about any of that. [00:57:36] Speaker B: Yeah, like, I'm into. I'm into it. [00:57:39] Speaker A: Like, everything I've read about this show claims that it's the absolute dog's bollocks. And, you know, I'm a big alien enthusiast. I love me it. It's a great time. [00:57:50] Speaker B: You like all of those? [00:57:51] Speaker A: The Wayland, Utah. [00:57:52] Speaker B: Do you like Covenant? [00:57:56] Speaker A: Yes. [00:57:57] Speaker B: Interesting. That's. I cannot get behind Covenant is probably the only one that I like, just cannot get behind. But I've seen a few people lately who are like. And that's the best of the. [00:58:07] Speaker A: Like, oh, no, certainly not. I mean. [00:58:09] Speaker B: Or the sequels or whatever. [00:58:11] Speaker A: The last couple of Ridley Scott ones I largely ignore. If I'm honest. I don't really care. I don't care about Prometheus or Covenant. I don't care about them. [00:58:18] Speaker B: I like Prometheus. Covenant did not work for me at all. [00:58:23] Speaker A: But right now I like the way. [00:58:25] Speaker B: It expands, like, the universe of it or whatever. And like, obviously, as you know, I then like the most recent one a lot, which includes those little expansions of the universe. [00:58:37] Speaker A: It does. But the most recent one took the exact right approach to those expansions. Mention them briefly in a scene and then fucking move. [00:58:47] Speaker B: Well, I mean, the end of it, like, the Big Bad is definitely what we get from Prometheus. Yeah, that's pretty important. And I love those guys. So. [00:58:59] Speaker A: But yes, what with new Predator, New Alien, fucking yes. We. We are eating, I think as. [00:59:07] Speaker B: Yeah, New Predator looks really fun, too. Super into that. [00:59:10] Speaker A: The Gribbly. The Predator seems a lot younger in the trailers, doesn't he? [00:59:15] Speaker B: Is that how you take it? That's interesting. [00:59:18] Speaker A: Almost like he's a child predator. [00:59:19] Speaker B: He's a child. Oh, no. [00:59:22] Speaker A: That's what I'm getting from it. He's like a teenager. Like a child predator in the film. That's what I'm getting. [00:59:31] Speaker B: Terrible, Terrible. [00:59:32] Speaker A: Mark put one of my ulcer pillows under the old. [00:59:37] Speaker B: Ugh. Why are you still doing that? It's. He's putting one of those zins in his mouth that last week we discussed is tearing apart his gums. [00:59:46] Speaker A: Had a couple of days off, healed. [00:59:48] Speaker B: Up, might as well start over. [00:59:50] Speaker A: Back for more. [00:59:52] Speaker B: It's like some sort of weird Sisyphean task, except that you don't have to do it. [00:59:58] Speaker A: What I'm thinking, much like gym calluses or guitar calluses, by the end, I'll have like this kind of daily kind of mouth calluses. [01:00:11] Speaker B: Your wife is gonna go to kiss you and be like, what's going on in there? Why is this like kissing a brick? I wanted to bring up just, you know, last week's episode, I think struck a nerve with me and with other people who listened to this year podcast. And one of our dear listeners, Brandon, somehow copped a perma ban from quite. [01:00:46] Speaker A: Quite a benign poster. Quite a chill guy. [01:00:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't know what happened. Somehow Facebook was like, nay, you can no longer use this website. And you cannot fight it either. So as a result he's pretty active on our discord, as are a few other people. And so he posted this really interesting video called how one Company secretly poisoned the Planet that is kind of an interesting companion to our discussion of PFAS and discusses the chemicals in Teflon primarily. Right. So you know, what's on your non stick pans and things like that and the degree of horrible chemicals in that that has done huge damage to the world and contributed to the fact that, you know, most if not all Americans have microplastics in our blood. They, in the video they, they talk to this guy and you know, the statistic you always hear is 98% of Americans have microplastics in their blood. Right. And so they asked him, you know, have you like, have you ever seen like people who don't have it? You know? And he's like, yeah, you hear that statistics? I've been testing for 25 years or whatever and I've yet to test a single person who didn't have microplastics in their blood. [01:02:19] Speaker A: Incredible. [01:02:20] Speaker B: So it's probably 100% but you have, you know, margin of error or whatever to say, you know, maybe, maybe not. My dog is eating plastic by the way. As I discuss this, I hear this like sound and I'm like, what do you got there buddy? It's just plastic anyways. But yeah, really interesting video. I posted it in the Facebook group, but it's also on our discord for those of you that want to avoid it. He also said, I work in maintenance for a public school system and there's crumb rubber all over the place, especially in the field houses. I was working in a press box at a football field today and actually noticed the dark area. And he posted some pictures which is excessive crumb rubber. [01:03:06] Speaker A: Excessive crumb rubber? [01:03:08] Speaker B: Yes, excessive grum rubber where it's just gathered. And he said he told his 13 year old daughter about being 300% more likely to have brain cancer from playing on artificial turf. And her response was, but I love playing with those little rubber pieces. Yeah, it's horrifying, isn't it? It's like straight up the like you know, in the Chernobyl, like, you know, like, oh, what's this? Neat. [01:03:32] Speaker A: Yeah, this fun snow. [01:03:33] Speaker B: Fun snow that's coming down on us like that kind of thing. And I actually went yesterday, I took Walter to the park so I could look at the Astroturf there. Not only is it like crumb rubber, but like I posted pictures of this too. There's like trees that they've landscaped and around it is just shredded tire that looks like bark. So rather than putting like actual bark like they used to have around trees and parks and stuff like that, it's just tires. It's just a whole bunch of shredded tire. It's. Yeah, it's pretty horrifying. So, you know, let us know if you have encountered other astroturf related pfas related things in your travels. Check out the Discord. There's always, you know, related to every one of our episodes. People post things in there that relate to whatever we've been talking about. So Big recommend getting on that and. [01:04:37] Speaker A: And a shout out to you specifically. Brandon, thanks for contributing. It's always lovely to see you pop up. [01:04:43] Speaker B: Indeed. We miss you. But, you know, at least we've got the Discord. [01:04:50] Speaker A: This is. There's a future episode here, I think a subject super briefly. And this is gonna be super brief. You know how. [01:04:58] Speaker B: I don't know why you keep saying this. Like other people are like, hey, pick it up, Mark. Like, I know you're talking to yourself. [01:05:05] Speaker A: Here, but I'm thinking out loud. That's all I've been doing for the past five years on this cast is thinking out loud. You know how there's a lot of dialogue at the minute about how fragile men are? Yeah. [01:05:16] Speaker B: Yes. [01:05:20] Speaker A: Read a fantastic article about specifically how fragile male gamers are. Right. [01:05:26] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. [01:05:29] Speaker A: A story on Kotaku about a game called Kazan, the First Berserker. Right. [01:05:35] Speaker B: Okay. [01:05:36] Speaker A: Didn't hit big. It's quite a. It's got a kind of a small but dedicated audience. It's a roguelike. It's kind of like Dark Souls. And I think I might. [01:05:46] Speaker B: When you said so roguelike, I'm like, wait, do I have that? [01:05:50] Speaker A: I wouldn't be surprised because you love them, which I cannot for the life of me fathom. It's. It's. It seems at odds with you and your personality that you would love that genre of games so much. But the developer, right, A guy. A guy. The creative director is a guy called Junho Lee. [01:06:05] Speaker B: Okay. [01:06:06] Speaker A: And the game has an easy mode. Right. But overwhelmingly, when looking at the data from players, this guy, Jun Ho Lee noticed that when it got too challenging for. For gamers, male gamers specifically, rather than knocking it down to easy, they were just fucking it off and abandoning it completely. [01:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:30] Speaker A: And the easy mode is by no means easy. You still die. Right. You know what I mean? But it's a little bit less of a Challenge that allows you to explore. [01:06:38] Speaker B: But yes, I'm a big fan of accessibility settings in games. If it gets too hard, I'm like, alright, what can I fix in these settings to make it easier? [01:06:46] Speaker A: This is apparently give me accessibility a big problem. Nobody uses Easy mode and they will quit and nope out of a game before going down to Easy mode. So do you know what they're fucking. Do you know what the developers did to sort this problem out? [01:06:57] Speaker B: Oh no, what did they do? [01:06:58] Speaker A: They changed the name of Easy Mode to Normal Mode and found that people were just using it then that's incredible. They change it to kind of normal, challenging and solid or whatever. And gamers were far more likely to knock the difficulty down if it was just called Normal mode. Isn't that interesting? [01:07:21] Speaker B: It's, you know, we talked a lot. [01:07:22] Speaker A: On Fragile and Scared. Must be. [01:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah, we talked about this a lot on Men of Moral Fiber that it took, you know, all of us kind of a time to realize we could like do stuff like that. And it doesn't, you know, negate the game or whatever. But it is true that I think that I, I was the first to be like, you know what? Fuck it. Like when I was a kid and I played like Wolfenstein and Doom and stuff like that, I'm like IDKFA or whatever, you know, let's, let's put in unlimited ammo, let's put in God mode, let's walk through walls, whatever. Like it's more fun for me. [01:07:59] Speaker A: In your own home, right? In the four walls of your own. It's not an online game you're playing on your own by yourself and you would rather abandon a game you've paid money for rather than tweak something to get more fun out of it. Isn't that fucking right? [01:08:15] Speaker B: Doesn't that ego won't let you. [01:08:17] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:08:19] Speaker B: Easy. [01:08:19] Speaker A: I think that speaks to something and I'm going to think on it. [01:08:22] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and I think, you know, this is like I said something we talked about on Men of Low Moral Fiber is like kind of that idea of like, why are we playing games in the first place, right? And if it ceases to be fun and you can make a tweak like that, then do it. But that's exactly the thing we talked about especially for, you know, Ben and Jason, the idea of doing that as something of like overcoming this sense of like ego where also as a female gamer, one of the things that over the course of that show it became a running joke, right, that I'm the hardcore gamer because I came into it not looking at myself as a gamer because I'm a girl. And we don't consider the games that we play or how we play them to be gaming like the way men do. Right. And it was like, no, you are a gamer. But men have kind of carved out this niche of like what that means and it excludes someone like me who will put easy mode on or whatever. And so I kind of embraced that. But there's very much a lot of like male pride wrapped up in gaming that we discussed a lot over the seven years or whatever that I was on that show. [01:09:41] Speaker A: Yes. And it has, it is, it has attracted my attention that one story in particular. So I'm going to, I'm going to look at that in a bit more detail. [01:09:48] Speaker B: Yeah, think on it. Think on it a little bit more. Very interesting. Few things to point out to people. We got a fan cave coming up this coming week on Thursday we'll be talking about Tucker and Dale versus evil. So I think that's a fun little end of summer movie to watch. Get your copy out or whatever and enjoy it and then listen to us discover discuss it. It should be a very good time. As, as usual, we always have fun. I think Kristen's gonna enjoy this one. I think I have something very dark planned for her the next month so. [01:10:22] Speaker A: Oh, go on. Do I get a clue? [01:10:24] Speaker B: No, no, no, because I don't want to. I don't want to give it away beforehand. I'll tell you after. Yeah, text, but. Yeah, text you afterwards. But giving her a nice light hearted one for the end of the summer to just enjoy closing everything out. I'm working on. I've ordered things for the next mailer so those will be coming before long, you know, whenever they arrive in the mail. So. Hey, lots of good things happening on the KO Fi. I'm recording a Joag radio as well. It's been a little noisy around here so it's kind of hard to record a soft spoken thing. [01:11:03] Speaker A: Somehow the kids go around. We'll get a. Let's play up in the next couple of days. [01:11:07] Speaker B: You know, I wasn't even going to mention that. But yes, it's been, you know, harder to record with Marco because he has a house full of humans that he doesn't have. When the children go to school and whatnot and have like a normal bedtime, you know, we'll, we'll get into the next chapter of Night in the Woods. Is that what we're playing? [01:11:24] Speaker A: Night in the. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:11:26] Speaker B: Night in the woods. Yeah. Which is fun and enjoyable. We'll get to that as well. We got lots of stuff coming. So if you're not already a member of our Ko Fi, you should totally do that. Ko-fi.com jackofallgraves and get all kinds of neat little perks and spend more time with us. You know, I always think about this. I'm like, I'm so. I'm like, oh, man, gotta produce more, more, more. Like every. Aside from like last podcast on the left. That's like a professional production. [01:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:55] Speaker B: We have so much more content than most Patreons and things do. But there's a lot on there for you, especially in the backlog of the past several years of that existing. So if you're not on there, hey, why not as little as $3 a month for all that nice content? [01:12:15] Speaker A: Nice. [01:12:17] Speaker B: Now we're gonna get into what we watch this week, which is mostly me, realistically, because you have. You've been all over the place. [01:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah, just. Just a lot of nursery, a lot of travel. So no watches for me other than. Other than one absolutely beautiful watch. But I'm more curious. There's one movie in particular of yours that I'm curious to hear a lot about, and that's Naked Gun. I'd really love to hear about that. [01:12:45] Speaker B: Naked Gun. Yeah. Listen, I, of course watched. I had you get Naked Gun the OG for me on Plex beforehand because it'd been probably since college the last time that I had watched that, which it was very warm watching the. So the last day of my senior year of college, we were like, we have like 24 hours left with the equipment. I was a film production major, so we're like, let's make one last film. [01:13:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:18] Speaker B: And are you. Is someone requesting your. This is. [01:13:26] Speaker A: Here she is. [01:13:28] Speaker B: Marco is. [01:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm still recording. [01:13:30] Speaker B: Harassing his wife with. [01:13:32] Speaker A: I'm not harassing her. She's harassing me. She's just walking into my space. You don't get this on last podcast on the left. Love you. [01:13:39] Speaker B: No, I don't suppose you do. Anyways, so we were like, let's make one last film. And me and my friend Josh sat down and we wrote like a really dumb Naked Gun esque film noir script about, like a detective who. A woman walks into his office looking for her brother, and when she leaves, he then finds her lying on the floor dead afterwards. [01:14:02] Speaker A: I'd like to see that. [01:14:03] Speaker B: Very silly. They have it on YouTube. I'll try to post it, but yeah, it's just like A very stupid, very Naked Gun inspired little thing that we put together over the course of 24 hours. [01:14:17] Speaker A: I feel like I watch it often. I feel like I watch Naked Gun quite often. [01:14:20] Speaker B: Every time you referenced it a couple weeks ago or whatever. And this new one, I think just. It maintains exactly the same kind of humor, deadpan ness, the silly punchlines. The amount of gags in this is just incredible. Which is exactly the thing with Naked Gun too. Like, there's always. I think my favorite just throwaway gag in Naked Gun that makes me like snort laugh is when the cops are walking through the department and Leslie Nielsen goes around the. The set. So he walks around the door instead of through the door. [01:15:01] Speaker A: Absolutely. [01:15:02] Speaker B: Just kills me. Yeah, I mean, it's full of silly shit like that. It is so, so much fun. [01:15:07] Speaker A: From trailer to release, this was a remake that had Shetter just written all over it. This. I was convinced this was gonna absolutely stink the place out. So the fact that everyone is going, actually, it's funny as fuck. So great. And Liam Neeson's great. So. [01:15:25] Speaker B: Right. If you can put yourself in like exactly the mindset of Naked Gun and not a demon, not updated. Like, that's the thing is like, if you expect like an updated for today comedy, it's not wonderful. It's very much the same, which means it moves a little. Like, while there's a lot of gags, there's still like a little bit slower pace in the way people interact and stuff. Like it feels like the original one. And yeah, Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson are great. And there's so many just memorable gags in this movie that, you know, even like just. There's one before the credits that like had me like crying. It's like, this is. It's so stupid. It's so goddamn stupid. There's one gag about, you know, Liam Neeson having to take a shit in it that like just escalates and escalates is like just. It's too much. It's so far. And I was like, just rolling watching this. Just deeply immature. [01:16:29] Speaker A: Fantastic. Is it. [01:16:30] Speaker B: Is it acab as fuck. It's very fun. [01:16:33] Speaker A: Is it kid appropriate? Is it 11 year old appropriate? [01:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, there's like innuendo, of course stuff in that, but there's like nothing like hugely inappropriate fantastic in it. Really good. I think the worst thing for, you know, in terms of kids is there's like a implied a scene where like it looks like there's like a blowjob happening that isn't. Oh yeah, like that's about it. It's not like there's nothing that's like excessively violent, excessively sexual. Excessively. It's all. It's all fun. [01:17:07] Speaker A: Good. Okay. Sold. [01:17:11] Speaker B: I watched a different movie that I had. I think I had you get this one for me as well. Did I have you download the game? You did for me. [01:17:20] Speaker A: It's my. [01:17:21] Speaker B: Have you seen this? [01:17:22] Speaker A: It's my only gap. It's my only Fincher gap. I've not seen it. [01:17:27] Speaker B: Bizarre. Bizarre. It has, like, Fincher isms in it, but it does not feel like a Fincher movie at all because it's. It's very badly written. The script is like deep trash. This. This movie is about. What's the lead actor's name? Is it Michael Douglas? It is lead in this. Yeah. Michael Douglas is the lead in this. And he is like a high powered businessman, no time for anybody, like, real rude, you know, all that kind of stuff. Very 90s sort of thing. Right. Like, just like the. Doesn't care about anybody, just cares about his money kind of businessman and a thing that he played a lot. And he. His brother, played by Sean Penn, tells him that he has signed him up for this game, this unnamed game, and this thing is going to, like, change his life, you know, and so he ends up dragged into this game. But then it starts to feel like something much more sinister is going on that he's trying to. To get to the bottom of. Yeah. And it's like the idea of, like, not knowing, like, you know, is this a game or isn't it? Or, like, is there like, another layer to it or something like that? Like, is interesting, but it's not played interestingly. Instead, you're just as confused as he is throughout the movie. Like, why is any of this happening? Like, to what end? And it ends in possibly the stupidest way I could possibly. Like, to the point where, like, you. You find yourself, like, incredulously laughing. And this isn't just me. Like, if you read letterboxd reviews of it, like, even people who like it are like, that ending is ridiculous. Just a bizarre film. Like, really deeply bizarre. [01:19:38] Speaker A: Speaking of bizarre, Michael Douglas. Yes. Survived throat cancer, didn't he? [01:19:47] Speaker B: Yeah. From eating too much. [01:19:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Interesting. First case that I'm certainly aware of, where a man has contracted throat cancer from engaging in oral intercourse with a woman. How did that happen then? [01:20:05] Speaker B: Listen, and with Catherine Jones. [01:20:07] Speaker A: She's got a car. [01:20:10] Speaker B: I mean, I think the implication was that it was from too many different women of varying vaginal health because it's like he got it from like. Or allegedly. I think it's like the same thing that. What's the thing you get the vaccine for? [01:20:27] Speaker A: Hpv. [01:20:28] Speaker B: Hpv, I think is what it is. [01:20:30] Speaker A: Human papilloma virus. [01:20:32] Speaker B: That's the one. And so I think he. He was like, oh, I got the HBV because I was spreading. Spreading the love. [01:20:41] Speaker A: Ah. Right now. [01:20:42] Speaker B: Okay. [01:20:43] Speaker A: Incredible. I've misunderstood the situation. I thought it was specifically Catherine Zeta Jones. [01:20:48] Speaker B: She's just. She's got problems. [01:20:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Like chewing tobacco down there. [01:20:53] Speaker B: Not that there's anything wrong with having hpv. Listen. [01:20:56] Speaker A: No, sir. Hey. Fuck. [01:20:57] Speaker B: No good chunk of humans do. [01:20:59] Speaker A: Yes. That feels like a story that we should explore. [01:21:04] Speaker B: HPV or Michael Douglas. [01:21:06] Speaker A: Carcinogenic. Too much vagina. [01:21:09] Speaker B: Carcinogenic vaginas. It's my metal band. Yeah. I don't. Maybe we can factor fiction it. Put it on a list of things. Can you get throat cancer from a carcinogenic vagina? [01:21:26] Speaker A: Michael Douglas says you can. [01:21:28] Speaker B: Michael Douglas says. So what are the experts say of. [01:21:31] Speaker A: All of the ladies to have a carcinogenic fanny though? Catherine Zeta Jones. That's disappointing. [01:21:39] Speaker B: She said she is one of your countrymen. [01:21:41] Speaker A: Well, exactly. [01:21:44] Speaker B: Doesn't speak well of the Welsh again. There's nothing wrong with having hpv. But anyways, yeah, the game was a weird. A weird one for me. I did get around to watching Jurassic World. Rebirth. [01:21:58] Speaker A: Yawn. [01:22:00] Speaker B: Listen, I enjoyed it, but here's why. I understand why other people didn't. But I have a deep love for Sci Fi Channel movies from back in the day, like 15 years ago, you know, when they would have like disaster movies or creature movies, you know, big sort of prehistoric crocodile eating everybody or whatever, low budget kind of thing, but everybody's giving it their all, that sort of thing. And Jurassic World, Rebirth. It feels like a Sci Fi Channel movie. [01:22:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. It does. And I just wonder why you call it Jurassic World anymore. If it's just monsters. [01:22:42] Speaker B: It's just monsters. Yeah. [01:22:43] Speaker A: Because that's what it is now. It's just monsters. [01:22:45] Speaker B: Brand recognition, Right. [01:22:46] Speaker A: The one interesting. To me, the one interesting plot angle of the Jurassic World movies was the clone girl. [01:22:55] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [01:22:56] Speaker A: Fascinating idea. New bit of ground for the series to break and to tread and to explore and to forget and ignore. [01:23:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Completely abandoned at this point. No, it's just a monster movie. But I enjoyed that. And honestly, I would almost rather this is what the Jurassic World franchise is instead of trying to get into sort of deep questions like the previous three did. Like, you know, it's never going to be Jurassic park, so let's just be stupid with it. One thing that I think is very funny though is like Scarlett Johansson is just fighting for her life trying to act in this movie. Because there is nothing believable about Scarlett Johansson being like fun and quirky, like she cannot pull it off at all. Like her brand of acting is straight face monotone. And in this she's supposed to be like really light hearted and whatnot. And there's a point in this where like she's talking to Mahershala Ali who is incredible obviously, and this moment is happening and like I'm sitting here, my husband and I are watching it and I'm like thinking like, Jesus Christ, he's so good. Like he's so good. And Kyo just goes, scarlett Johansson's about to call cut and ask the director to have Mahershala act worse. [01:24:13] Speaker A: Like, yeah, he is fantastic, whatever you put him in. Scarlett Johansson has come to inhabit for me a similar place to like a Gwyneth Paltrow. [01:24:24] Speaker B: Okay. [01:24:25] Speaker A: You know what I mean in that. Just quite leaden on screen. [01:24:30] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. [01:24:31] Speaker A: Nothing really to remember, you know, nothing really to differentiate. [01:24:36] Speaker B: Married to Colin Jost. [01:24:37] Speaker A: I don't even know who that is. [01:24:39] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I guess that wouldn't really impact you. He's the weekend update host from SNL who is known for the fact that he's just the blandest, whitest man. [01:24:47] Speaker A: That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. [01:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Completely unremarkable person to the point that it's then become like a running joke on snl. He's just like, he's got a punchable face, you know, it rubs people the wrong way for being such a bland white guy. Yeah. And that's, it's perfect in this movie. Just how she's trying to pull off like an Ellie Sattler. She's trying to pull off, you know, what Bryce Dallas Howard was doing and whatnot and she just, she can't do it. She just, she does not have enough charisma for that role. And up against the actors who she is playing against in this hard work. That made it enjoyable for me too. Just like, oh, sweet girl, you've got. [01:25:31] Speaker A: Some kind of meta level degree of separation enjoyment from it. Removal from the actual film itself. Well, okay, the film is still failed then if that's the only fun you could find from it. [01:25:42] Speaker B: Oh, I found it funny. [01:25:43] Speaker A: And the monsters. Okay, fine. [01:25:44] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like everything about it I actually found quite entertaining. You know, I like, I Liked the characters fine, aside from the son or the boyfriend that you want to die immediately, things like that. Like, I thought it was entertaining. It entertained me enough on a Friday night or whatever. [01:26:04] Speaker A: Did you steal it at least? [01:26:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I watched it on your platform. [01:26:10] Speaker A: Good. That's fine then. As long as no one got paid. [01:26:14] Speaker B: No one got paid. Someone did get paid, though, for the one that. Once again, I will be the dissenting. [01:26:24] Speaker A: Voice on Lisa Simpson. Here she is again. [01:26:29] Speaker B: I just don't like Zach Kreger. I've realized I went and watched Weapons, did not enjoy Weapons. [01:26:41] Speaker A: Well, we. It. I've got plenty of cinema vouchers kicking around, so I'm not. I am going to see Weapons at the some point. So we will not go into detail. [01:26:50] Speaker B: Yeah, we won't go into strong detail. Is it just. [01:26:53] Speaker A: Is it the fact that it. Is it formulaic? Corrie, Is it one thing and then there's a twist? Is that what pisses you off? [01:26:59] Speaker B: I mean, I don't like that. Yeah, definitely. And part of it is that, like, structurally, it is extremely formulaic, but plays as if it isn't. [01:27:07] Speaker A: Right. [01:27:08] Speaker B: So, like, the first half of the movie is like the thing where you get different perspectives from different characters on the same thing. [01:27:16] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. That's one of my favorite gimmicks, in fact. [01:27:18] Speaker B: And. But it doesn't revol. Reveal anything new each time. So you're, like, trying to unravel a mystery that isn't there. It's actually a totally linear story that for some reason does this. And it's so annoying that by the fourth or so story that they told, like, there were people who were just going, oh, okay, yeah, just like, come on. Like, we've already seen the same scene happen so many times. There's just no reason for this. But it implies that this is a mystery to be solved and you're getting new information revealed to you, which it isn't. It's a very straightforward story with a very straightforward villain, and it ends pretty much exactly the same way that Barbarian does. It's just. It's annoying that it's, like, acting like it's doing something different and it isn't. And we'll talk when we, you know, when you see it more. But I think, you know, my other thing is I. I find his movies to be extremely ideologically regressive. I think, you know, he plays into, like. Basically his ideas are, what if the Satanic panic people are right? And it really is. You know, it's. Think of the children what if there really is some outside thing coming in and it's a parasite on our society and that is what's making. [01:28:38] Speaker A: I don't think I can name another aside from Barbarian. Is that all. [01:28:41] Speaker B: Those are his two movies? Yeah. [01:28:43] Speaker A: Okay. Well, yeah, you're allowed a few goes on you, you know, if you, if you, if we'll still turn up to a fucking Shyamalan film. He's allowed a few more goes. [01:28:55] Speaker B: Right. I think I've just determined that I think, I don't like his worldview and I think, you know, his kind of thing is ugly and disabled women are terrifying and that, you know, conservative panics are correct and I just, I just don't like that. [01:29:15] Speaker A: Fine. [01:29:17] Speaker B: But yes, I look forward to you seeing it so we can kind of discuss it further, maybe even snack it or something so that we don't spoil it for other people. [01:29:25] Speaker A: Fantastic. But no, I'm certainly going to go this week. [01:29:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And the other thing, before we get to the one movie that you watch, just one this week I was, I've been in a disaster movie mode. I said last week I had watched Knowing, which actually didn't talk about, that's a weird ass movie too. But I watched the Day After Tomorrow, which I hadn't watched in, I don't know, 10 years or so probably. And I, I love a Roland Emmerich movie. I love a crazy disaster movie. I think it's a lot of fun and everything, but it's also just like somewhat depressing because Roland Emmerich is like for whatever flaws or of his movies and things you may find, he's a passionate climate guy. You know, he really cares about the planet and you know, I'm sure, I hope he regrets making Elon Musk such a hero in Moonfall, but he genuinely is trying to like tell people, like, wake up, the world is, is on fire and to watch this from 22 years ago or whatever and. [01:30:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. [01:30:36] Speaker B: He's, he's trying to tell us like, hello, this is what is about to happen. The movie is so firmly telling us where climate change is taking us in no uncertain terms. He's explaining the science over and over and over again of what is going to happen to us. And it's, you know, it's sad to watch that and be like, and we have made no changes. [01:30:59] Speaker A: None. Not a single fucking one. [01:31:01] Speaker B: People just went, this movie is dumb and moved on. [01:31:05] Speaker A: And you know, it felt like, I don't know, maybe back it was Just movies that were saying it back then. I mean, the voices were. There was by no means a consensus in pop culture. [01:31:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because like I remember growing up and like read we would get like in our classrooms, like a little news for kids thing and stuff like that, and talking about, you know, global warming, as it was always called back then, you know, and learning about it in a very un divisive way, like this is just a fact, this is what's happening and all that kind of stuff. And I think it took like a very distinct turn. You know, he's making this or whatever. But within a few years of that movie, it took a very distinct turn towards like, this is. This is fraught. We can't make things that just say climate change is bad because what we. There's different opinions on that. So, you know, he was saying something that became very quickly super unpopular. [01:32:06] Speaker A: There we go. Ask yourself, you know, when and at what point and by who was it disputed? [01:32:18] Speaker B: Exactly. Yep. So I'm with you, Roland. I'm on your side. You watched this week. [01:32:26] Speaker A: Did you. Did you get around to bring her back? [01:32:29] Speaker B: No, because I'm not in the mood to be depressed, okay? [01:32:31] Speaker A: You should be. You should be. It's very stylish and relentlessly depressing. [01:32:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm saving that for like dark season. I'm not watching the peak summer. [01:32:43] Speaker A: I don't know if there's a better time. Let me know when you do want to get around to it because I'll give that another spin. Do I love that movie? [01:32:50] Speaker B: Yeah. A lot of people have been watching it this week on my letterboxd and. [01:32:53] Speaker A: It'S, you know, so good. And it gets better with a little bit of space, you know, I mean, it's one I'm thinking back to very, very fondly. Listen, only thing I watched and you'll know that one of my favorite things to do is to watch movies with my kids. It's the best thing. [01:33:11] Speaker B: Yeah. You actually watched something other than this this week with your kids too, but go on. [01:33:14] Speaker A: Did I? [01:33:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:17] Speaker A: No, I didn't. [01:33:18] Speaker B: You watched K Pop Demon Hunters. [01:33:20] Speaker A: That was last week. [01:33:21] Speaker B: Was it? [01:33:22] Speaker A: Yep. [01:33:23] Speaker B: Okay. Just kidding, go on. [01:33:25] Speaker A: My kids are in a big Spider man phase at the moment. We are loving pouring over the set pics which are leaking out on a daily basis from Glasgow. [01:33:36] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [01:33:37] Speaker A: Where the new one is filming, like literally every fucking day there. There are set pics and videos from. From offices and hotels and it looks fantastic. The set pics look fucking great. And they're playing the second game on the PS5 again and I'm enjoying watching that. So we sat down and watched the last Spider man film, no Way Home. [01:34:00] Speaker B: That's what I have to revisit because I had like a horrible scene cinema experience when I saw it. That like tarnished the whole thing where there was like a girl just talking about her day, full volume behind me and whatnot. And then when I told her to shush, she like freaked out. And then she just talked louder the rest of the movie. [01:34:15] Speaker A: I, I'm sorry that that happened to you because it's such a shame that that's your memory of Spider man no Way Home. [01:34:21] Speaker B: Because it's, it's no recollection of the movie. [01:34:24] Speaker A: He's just easily the second best Spider man movie of all time. It's nice, beautiful. It is so positive and it is just the, the instant, easy fraternal relationship between the three Spideys. The clunky but endearing way that, you know, 30 years of. Of movies is tied up in the space of 15 minutes. Just for a while there for, for a few years there just MCU was the. It was the absolute greatest. And this is a cracking example of that. It's just familiar but thrilling. You know, you know what you're gonna get, but you get it so expertly well. It is so well done and the continuity seems really neatly executed. And yeah, the entire thing is filmed in a studio on a green screen during COVID Don't give a fuck. Because it is so. It's just for some, for. For a multi billion dollar enterprise like it had become by then. There's something really authentic about it. You just. It's just so endearing, that movie. I mean, the three Spideys show up in the little fucking, you know, conversation about the little idiosyncrasies about being Spider man, about, you know, the message that loss is part of it. You know, you can't fucking do it unless you're prepared to accept that there's grief, you know, and there's loss and you've gotta put the people you love at risk. And that's a real thing that the, the. Because, you know, being Spider man seems so fun and so cool and it isn't always. And I cried like a adult man watching it. And the boys were emotional and it was. [01:36:09] Speaker B: I was gonna say, do the kids cry too or do they. [01:36:11] Speaker A: No, the kids don't. [01:36:12] Speaker B: They together. [01:36:13] Speaker A: They're used to seeing me kind of blubbing children's films. [01:36:18] Speaker B: Some of them. They will as well. [01:36:19] Speaker A: Yes, I. The one time I've caught Peter crying at a piece of media. Just one fucking time, and it was years ago. And it was at Zelda Breath of the Wild. [01:36:31] Speaker B: The game. [01:36:31] Speaker A: Yes, the game. [01:36:33] Speaker B: Okay. [01:36:34] Speaker A: I came down unexpectedly early one morning and he was propped up on his elbows in front of one of the cutscenes in Zelda and he had tears coming down his face. And I'll never ever forget his exact words. He would. Dad, this game, it's got emotions. [01:36:52] Speaker B: So cute. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure do. Sure do, buddy. [01:36:56] Speaker A: Beautiful. [01:36:57] Speaker B: Absolutely beautiful. Amazing. Well, friends, that's been our. Our week. You know, like, we did a pretty. We did a pretty good job. 1 hour and 37 minutes. Delighted is. We were like, this week it's totally gonna. We're totally gonna do a short one. It's become like a funny little goal like that. Most of the time we don't actually meet and thus it becomes a running gag. You know, can we do. [01:37:23] Speaker A: This is our first sub two hour episode, I think in a year at least or more. [01:37:27] Speaker B: Right. [01:37:28] Speaker A: And I'm hanging on for dear life right now. [01:37:30] Speaker B: So this is. You're doing a great job. [01:37:32] Speaker A: Thank you very much. [01:37:33] Speaker B: We love you in our. Proud of you. Gosh darn it. [01:37:36] Speaker A: Thanks, babes. [01:37:41] Speaker B: Says the Void. [01:37:45] Speaker A: Thanks, babes. [01:37:48] Speaker B: So, friends. Yeah. Let us know what you think about collapse. Where are we going? Well, anything, obviously, you know, we're. We're open to hearing. [01:37:58] Speaker A: Let us know your thoughts. [01:37:59] Speaker B: But yeah, if you have thoughts on collapse and vibe sessions and PFAs and Zach Krager's ideology or whatever else. Yep, we want to hear it. [01:38:11] Speaker A: Yep. [01:38:12] Speaker B: Especially on the discord. Free from old Zuckerberg, but on the Facebook as well, on our blue sky and everything. We are waiting there with bated breath. [01:38:23] Speaker A: Yes. [01:38:24] Speaker B: Opinions. [01:38:25] Speaker A: Love you. Have a great week. Stay spooky here.