Ep. 279: parsing psychosis & the great ai panic

[00:00:03] Speaker A: There's so much here that. There's so much here to talk about. There's so much here for me to think about. Right. So let me start with a thematic link to a recent jack of all graves, if I may. [00:00:16] Speaker B: All right, let's do that. [00:00:17] Speaker A: Where you spoke to me about the neuroscience and experiential kind of experiments and explanations, clinical, medical explanations for subjective phenomena like lucid dreaming. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:00:45] Speaker A: And. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:45] Speaker A: Stroll projection. Yes. [00:00:47] Speaker B: Right, yeah. [00:00:49] Speaker A: You spoke of some work and some experiments in psychiatry and psychology. [00:00:55] Speaker B: That neuroscience. [00:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure. That could maybe give a clinical explanation for some holistic, shall we say, phenomena. Yes. [00:01:10] Speaker B: Now, not could, but does we know how it works? [00:01:14] Speaker A: Could. [00:01:15] Speaker B: Does. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:17] Speaker B: You not believing it doesn't make it untrue. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Doesn't. But that's exactly the point, Corrigan. Does it? Oh, my heavens. [00:01:30] Speaker B: Well, that sounds like a holistic opinion. [00:01:35] Speaker A: So. [00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah, hit me. [00:01:38] Speaker A: It's a. It's a. It's a long running Joag topic. Right. It's a long running theme of ours. One might call it a preoccupation of mine. The idea of delusion, of psychosis. [00:01:49] Speaker B: Right. Yep. [00:01:51] Speaker A: For so many reasons, I've never had a lucid dream. [00:01:56] Speaker B: That's odd. [00:01:57] Speaker A: No, I've not. [00:01:58] Speaker B: I guess. Not odd. I guess it was like what, 50% of people have them. So [00:02:03] Speaker A: I've certainly experienced that hinterland between dreams and waking where you are aware that you are dreaming. Never have I been able to. [00:02:11] Speaker B: But you can't control it. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Exactly. To influence it. But while I would never. While I haven't. While I've never been in what I would consider to be a state of psychosis, I've certainly been in the ballpark. [00:02:24] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. [00:02:25] Speaker A: I think it's certainly an arena that I might have veered uncomfortably close to at times after nights without sleep, after protracted kind of periods on psychoactives of one kind or another. I've certainly. [00:02:39] Speaker B: Sure. [00:02:39] Speaker A: I certainly know what it is to have not. Not the difference between visuals and the difference between an hallucination, I guess, and a visual impact. An hallucination is something happening untoward which you believe might actually be occurring, as opposed to a visual distortion. Something that, you know, with a rational mind can't be really going on, but hallucination or something. Hang on, what is the. You know, this is something that I'm. I'm. Feels real in a lucid kind of way. [00:03:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:11] Speaker A: And I wonder, man, I wonder. Does. Does psychosis have a bad name? You know, you think? [00:03:20] Speaker B: Okay. [00:03:21] Speaker A: No, no, I mean, you think. [00:03:23] Speaker B: Go on. [00:03:23] Speaker A: Psychosis, you think psycho, you think psychopath. You think, you know, you, You. It has all manner of negative connotations. Right, Right. But I've been thinking hard about this. This notion of experienced reality. Right. This notion of whether what you are seeing is a 100% accurate reflection of what is really there. Does your reality mirror mine? [00:04:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:04:06] Speaker A: What are. What is going on under the hood when the physical world doesn't match up to the world, the internal world, the world of your pink goo. Right. The gem. What is happening between the external stimulus and the way that you are interpreting it? [00:04:28] Speaker B: Right. [00:04:28] Speaker A: In instances of delusion, of psychosis, I would. I mean, it's. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of people never really have to spend too much time asking that question. Is what I'm experiencing right now an accurate reflection of what is going up. Going up on around me? You know, you can, you know, you clap your hands, you know what sound it's going to make. Do you smell coffee? And you know, how you look at your own reflection and you know, what you're seeing and hearing is as expected. [00:05:11] Speaker B: Right, Right. [00:05:13] Speaker A: And that's important. Not necessarily 100% accurate, but as expected. [00:05:20] Speaker B: That's a good way of putting it because obviously we just. I think during that same episode, we were talking about that idea that, like, we do all perceive things differently. There's no way for us to know whether we perceive things the same. But as expected. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Yes. [00:05:33] Speaker B: Is important. Yeah. [00:05:34] Speaker A: In the last 20 or so years. Right. [00:05:38] Speaker B: Mm. [00:05:40] Speaker A: The picture of perception in the psychiatric community has put. Don't think of it as a pipeline. Right. So as in, you've got the external world around you that is in turn, that is perceived by your sensory organs. [00:06:05] Speaker B: Sure. [00:06:05] Speaker A: Which then feeds information to your brain. Your brain interprets that as. That's happening. [00:06:12] Speaker B: Right, Right. [00:06:14] Speaker A: That's like a pipeline, a stage, a set of things going on outside to in. Right. [00:06:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:20] Speaker A: Don't think of it in those ways. Think of it perhaps more. Because your brain does not have access to the outside world. Right. All it's got is. Is. [00:06:31] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Almost like an interface of sensory organs, which it uses to interpret. The term that I've read over the past couple of days is. Think of it more in terms of computational psychiatry. [00:06:46] Speaker B: Okay, Right. [00:06:48] Speaker A: Your brain. Yes. Of course, it's experiencing the world around it, but as much as that, it is predicting what will happen next in the world around it. [00:07:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I think I just. On that note, real quick, I think I've years ago talked about this, but I Read a book that I found, like, super interesting that was like, literally not even. It wasn't like a book about anything. It was kind of like each page had, like, a fact on it, right? And one of those was about the way that we perceive things visually and how, like, say, you know, someone throws a baseball at you from across the room, and you don't register it consciously, but you throw your hand up and you catch it, right? And, you know, we kind of will look at it as like, oh, we had a premonition, or like, something like that. When really what's happening is that we did perceive a shift in something. We. It caught our eye in some way. And, okay, it takes long enough for us to process it that our body reacts before our brain consciously goes, hey, there's something at you. [00:07:56] Speaker A: We'll kind of get there. [00:07:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I'm just saying, like, I think that that kind of thing is really interesting to think about, right. When it comes to this, like, concept that you've just sort of introduced here, we will. [00:08:09] Speaker A: We will absolutely get there. But what I'm talking about when I. When I say computational is. So let's say for. Think of an example, let's say you go and turn on your hot tap, right? You are primed through experience and conditioning to expect it to run for a little while and then for hot water to come out, right? Right. Now, if that doesn't happen, and if just cold water comes out of your hot tap, your brain then has to make an informed kind of judgment on why that's happening. Is there a problem with the tap? Is there a problem with the boiler? Have I turned the wrong tap on? Is there a problem with my hands? And adjust your behavior accordingly. Right? Now, if that happens again, and if it happens again, if it keeps happening over time, your brain will start to. To shift its expectation of what will happen when you turn a cold tap, right? Like if you. If you see a cat and it. And it. And it goes woof instead of meow initially, the first couple of times, you'd be like, right, something's fucking clearly wrong here. But if that kept happen, yeah, you're at a. At a neurological level, your brain would start to re. Organize its kind of expectations, right. For what it's expecting next. Right? [00:09:39] Speaker B: Much like the hammer thing or whatever that we look at too, you know, very quickly your brain adjusts to thinking something else is your hand. [00:09:49] Speaker A: Now, the thing to keep in mind about this prediction kind of process that I've just spoken about there is that it is happening all the time. [00:10:03] Speaker B: Right, Right. [00:10:04] Speaker A: Constantly, all the time. Generally kind of underneath your awareness as well. You're expecting things to look a certain way. You're expecting things to make certain sounds. You're. When you look at someone's face, you're expecting it to kind of stay still, you know, and not jump all about the fucking place. And, you know, you're not consciously aware that you're making those predictions all the time, because things are happening the way they should. The machine is working how it should. But this concept of predictive processing raises and asks the question, in terms of psychosis, what happens when your brain is getting the kind of. The. The weighting of the prediction of the signals? Wrong. And there are loads of ways that can happen. Right. Dopamine response is being all up. When something goes right, it can release a particular kind of neurotransmitter. When something goes wrong, it'll release a different kind of transmitter. NMDA receptors, you know, cortical circuitry, your synapses. So when that all works and goes well, all right, fantastic. But when that goes wrong and your brain gets the wrong kinds of signals or the wrong kinds of chemicals from the wrong kinds of responses, that is certainly among a bunch of psychiatrists. A class Stefan, the Harriet Brown of Christopher Frith in 2013. Right. The computational anatomy of psychosis. They posit that a huge range of psychotic symptoms can be traced to what they deem aberrant precision, aberrant salience. Right. When your brain. When your brain decides that the wrong things matter. [00:12:09] Speaker B: Mm. [00:12:10] Speaker A: I know I'm grasping at the concept, but trust me. [00:12:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm getting where you're going so far. [00:12:15] Speaker A: Right. The fact is, most of the world, to you or I, at any given moment, is completely irrelevant. [00:12:21] Speaker B: Mm. [00:12:22] Speaker A: Right. [00:12:22] Speaker B: You. Yeah. [00:12:23] Speaker A: Right now I can't hear the wind outside because I'm not focusing on it. Right, Right. [00:12:30] Speaker B: But, you know, I have problems with that, given my adhd. But in general, yes, I understand what you're saying. [00:12:36] Speaker A: Same. Same. [00:12:36] Speaker B: Same. Like, no, I can hear the wind. But in theory, what you're getting at, yeah, there are definitely things you're ignoring. [00:12:44] Speaker A: If it's the middle of the day and I hear a knock at my door, Right. I'm like, oh, okay, there's someone at the door. If it's the middle of the night and I hear a knock on my door, the sound is the same. [00:12:53] Speaker B: Right. [00:12:54] Speaker A: But because of the context, I'm thinking, who the is at my door? Not. [00:12:58] Speaker B: Right. [00:12:58] Speaker A: Who's at my door? Right. It's. It's your Brain interpreting the inputs differently because the neurochemistry is all up. And that can lead over time to your brain attaching salience in an aberrant manner. [00:13:16] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:13:19] Speaker A: That kind of leads. And, and I'm quoting, I'm not quoting anyone, but I'm bastardizing the work of lots of different scholars here. A Shittage Kapoor in 2003. He was the guy who coined this. This notion of psychosis is paper was called psychosis as a state of aberrant salience. You're always subconsciously trying to decide what matters internally. Right. Your brain is always looking for what to focus on what matters. And if the wrong things earn attention, if the wrong things for whatever reason, be it, be it, be it neurot, you know, neurological or chemical imbalance is attaching salience to the wrong thing that can lead to delusion and that can internally to psychosis. So that to me almost reframes it helps me understand what a delusion actually is. You know, okay. When we've spoken about people who. Holy shit. All of my, all of my friends and relatives have been replaced by imposters or holy. I'm dead. My limbs are dead. I'm dead. I'm literally walking around dead. I can, I can understand how imbalances or misfirings in my brain would, would, would give me the right response. That what I'm looking at is actually. Hang on, that's. That's correct. [00:14:46] Speaker B: Well, okay, so I have a question about that because I'm not there yet. My. [00:14:50] Speaker A: Okay, okay, okay. [00:14:51] Speaker B: Thought process on this maybe you can sort of clear up is. So like I get this idea that like, you know, expectation is important to perception. Right. And that we are in a, in a perpetual state of filtering. You know, it's kind of the like ever. Like someone points out to you that like at any given time you can see your nose. And then you're like, I can see my nose. You know, we have to filter out that we can see our nose all the time. Right. Like, so there's these elements of the world that like, it's important for us to be able to, you know, frame so that we can process what's happening to us and prioritize what's important. And then in terms of this sort of aberrant salience idea. [00:15:35] Speaker A: Yes. [00:15:35] Speaker B: What this idea of like, you know, kind of focusing on the wrong thing and getting fucked up. So there has to be like a trigger first though, right? So. Because that wouldn't in and of itself like it. If I start noticing my nose, right. That is not going to make me hallucinate other things or, or whatever. So there has to be in this, like, what's the trigger? Right. I guess is what I'm asking. Because it's not just a matter of, you know, noticing the normal things around you too much. Something else has to sort of spur that psychosis first before you starting it. [00:16:15] Speaker A: My kind of understanding here is that there isn't just a trigger for this mechanism getting fucked up. Right. [00:16:21] Speaker B: Okay. [00:16:21] Speaker A: Dopamine imbalance is a big one, which I'll talk about in a sec. But it can be triggered by injury, by fucking substance misuse. [00:16:34] Speaker B: Sure. [00:16:34] Speaker A: By trauma, you know, Go on. [00:16:39] Speaker B: Well, so what you're kind of saying here is what this kind of aberrant salience is, is normally when this would occur, say you're on drugs or something like that, right. [00:16:53] Speaker A: Y. [00:16:53] Speaker B: To sort of use your comparison from before, you're aware that like, this is not a thing that's happening to me, but is because I have taken the substance that has done this, or, you know, I'm exhausted and that's why this is happening to me. So to make it salient is to then for your brain to see this and go, no, that's the, That's. Yes, you're seeing it because it's happening. [00:17:19] Speaker A: Exactly. To, to. And. And when you can remove kind of any, any, any obvious causes for it. Like if I'm. If I've. If I've used a psychoactive substance and I'm seeing unseemly, I know generally it's because I've taken a psychoactive substance. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Sure. [00:17:37] Speaker A: But if, for example, I am suffering from a neurological condition, a disorder, an illness, I may not necessarily be able to relate that as a trigger for what is going on in my neurobiology, [00:17:54] Speaker B: hence, or even like parents, I think of something like. And tell me if this is connected or not. Right. Like I think of something like ocd and you know, the idea that you actually do know, Right. Like this is in your head, but that like there are certain things that you'll, you know, if I don't do this, this will happen, this sort of if then catastrophizing kind of thought process, you know, if I don't turn the lights on and off 10 times, then like my mother will die or something like that. Right. Like, is there a connection there then between this sort of, this misfire, if you will, and like how your brain, even if you are aware of what the trigger maybe is, or is it completely separate when we're talking about psychosis that, like, that's a, that's a different pathway. [00:18:45] Speaker A: So like we've said, right. Every belief that we hold about the world has a, almost like a, a degree of confidence. Think of your brain less as a binary kind of decision making machine and more of a kind of like a prediction engine. Right? [00:19:10] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:11] Speaker A: And every kind of conception that you have about the world, every belief that you have, has a degree of confidence associated with it. And if you are 99 sure of something, you will behave far differently from someone who's like 40 sure of something. [00:19:31] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:31] Speaker A: If, if your brain isn't really sure that what you're seeing is accurate. [00:19:36] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:36] Speaker A: Then you're always wondering how much to trust your own expectations, how much you trust the sensory evidence that is coming at you. [00:19:45] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:45] Speaker A: Does that make sense? [00:19:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. [00:19:53] Speaker A: And the, that same kind of logic then if you pull on that thread, that same kind of logic extends to delusion and hallucination, let's say. So your brain's generating predictions all the time like we've said. Right. But if, for example, the dopamine response is all up and you're getting a dopamine response, a positive dopamine response, when the predictions are wrong, the salience, that apparent salience that comes from then your brain using that dopamine response to put faith in the incorrect predictions. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Right. [00:20:34] Speaker A: So that voice I've just heard on the TV is talking to me. [00:20:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:20:40] Speaker A: You know what I'm saying? This, this book I'm reading is actually communicating with me directly because of the aberrant salience that my brain chemistry is misattributed. [00:20:50] Speaker B: And I'm, I keep on trying to connect this to like, other sort of like neuroscience things that I've read or we've talked about here to try to sort of process this myself. But it kind of sounds like, I mean, obviously this is a thing that like develops. So like, say, you know, when we go through the world, it's important that we have these like, that our brain is trained to sort of shift its expectations when things change. Right. Because otherwise every day we woke up would be a nightmare. Right. It'd be like a medieval peasant waking up with the Internet. If you grew up and you like never adjusted, Right. Your brain didn't adjust to the fact that your world changes every single day. So you can see why that kind of, you know, shifting is important to, you know, how we deal with the world. I think of like addiction, Right. That I have read a couple books about, like the neuroscience of addiction. [00:21:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:42] Speaker B: And one of the things that a lot of neuroscience to say about is like, you know, it's not like a disease. It's not a willpower thing. It's your brain doing what it's supposed to do. It's this, like, you know, it has. It learns how to like, oh, this is a thing that like I need. And this is like the positive outcome that comes out of it. Clearly it's a thing that's necessary for. For me to like, go about my life. And it sort of shifts to again, like, adjust to. This is a thing we put in our body and it causes these positive responses. And that's wrong. You know, like what you're saying, what it's really doing is like, it's a poison, you know, that you're putting into yourself and it's causing you all kinds of like up brain things as a result of this. But your brain is adjusting to, you know, the. This wrong input and telling you that that is correct. So I just, I'm kind of like thinking of this on like a scale of like, if we take it outside of delusion, like, what is your brain doing that is like, similar to this kind of process? Yeah. [00:22:40] Speaker A: Pretty much everything that you would care to read on this topic underlines the absolute centrality of dopamine to all of this. [00:22:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is true of addiction, of course. [00:22:56] Speaker A: Dopamine is just fundamental in informing the decisions that your brain makes of how important certain signals are, how it should update its models of how the world works, the predictions that it's making. Like I've said, you know, if you, if you turn on the hot tap and cold water comes out, your brain is measuring the distance between what happened and what it thought would happen. [00:23:23] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:23] Speaker A: And is neuroplasticity. You know, it's updating itself to, to better cope with that in the future. And if you're getting up dopamine response, then your brain is permanently adapting to those and looking for those signals, looking for those patterns in the future. Go on. [00:23:45] Speaker B: So let's say, you know, there's. We all see that person in town or whatever who is yelling at some unknown entity, bro, today when I walked out of Resident Evil, there was a lady lying on her like, face in the rain, screaming, let me in, and pounding on the. The sidewalk. You know, when you see things like this and there was like, listen, I didn't just ignore. There was someone else there trying to help her. I would have helped otherwise. But like, you see people like this, you know, who are having fights with the air and whatnot. And so is this kind of behavior where clearly there is something that they are seeing or hearing or, you know, that whatever is going on with them, sort of an outcropping of like a. I mean, they see something, they hallucinate something, and then their brain is trained to. [00:24:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:44] Speaker B: Look for that. To perpetually see this. [00:24:47] Speaker A: I'll talk to you about some animal studies shortly. Right. [00:24:52] Speaker B: Okay. Sure. [00:24:53] Speaker A: Because something I commonly ask about human neurological or mental disorders is, are we alone in this? Do other mammals, do other animals, are they subject to the same kinds of pitfalls that we are neurologically? And fascinating. It is possible to create some of these symptoms in non human mammals. [00:25:21] Speaker B: Sure. [00:25:22] Speaker A: I would share an experience of mine. This was in my early 20s. Right. I took mushrooms. Okay. [00:25:31] Speaker B: Okay. And [00:25:36] Speaker A: I had a very. Just a terrifying sensation of. Even though I was sat down, sat perfectly still and stable on a chair, feeling as though I was falling backwards through space. Right. [00:25:47] Speaker B: I don't like that. [00:25:48] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:49] Speaker B: A little bit of an Alice in Wonderland experience. [00:25:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Kind of like if I were to close my eyes, it would feel as though the ground had gone from under me. Like that. Ah. Like Bill and Ted's bogus journey. You know, falling for that amazing gag. And that would. For months after, for actually, I think probably a year or two afterwards, that would periodically come back to me. [00:26:10] Speaker B: Mm. [00:26:13] Speaker A: Like so far removed from the. The. The kind of the. The psilocybin or whatever it is being in my system. But that sensation, that physical sensation would come back to me. [00:26:25] Speaker B: Interesting, isn't it? [00:26:27] Speaker A: So your lady shouting at the pavement people or die pigeon was the trigger equivalent? [00:26:34] Speaker B: Okay. [00:26:35] Speaker A: I don't know if I've mentioned dye Pigeon. [00:26:36] Speaker B: I don't think so. No. This is a new one. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Walk hither and dither up the streets of Triga. Just conversations with no one, you know, but yes. So, okay. Okay. To the. Let's go. Let's do. Let's go to the rats. Right. [00:26:53] Speaker B: The rats. Give me the rats. [00:26:56] Speaker A: Can you induce symptoms of psychosis in rats? Yes, you can guess what you got to do. You got to pump them full of amphetamines, these rats. Right? [00:27:14] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. [00:27:16] Speaker A: And obviously, again, I'm bastardizing and wildly oversimplifying the science, but behavioral sensitization in rats is the pathway towards almost triggering in their minds the psychosis response. What you do is right. You've got to firstly, many people have firstly given rats a sensitization dose of amphetamine, which is giving them amphetamines regularly in spaced out kind of exposure to make them. Firstly you'll find that the rats get more sensitive to it rather than tolerant. Do it right. So when you've established a particular regime of amphetamine dosage, rats will become more sensitive to it rather than less, and that's known as sensitization. But a key experiment here in demonstrating that psychosis can exist in rats is their response to something called ppi. Pre pulse inhibition. Right. [00:28:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:28:27] Speaker A: So theory goes, let's say you're walking into a room and I'm hiding behind the door and I jump out at you. Bye. Right. And I shout, right? You're gonna go, huh? You're gonna be scared, right? [00:28:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:38] Speaker A: If you surprise a rat with a loud noise, it will be scared, right? Sure. But pre pulse inhibition is the practice of, if you startle a rat first with a quieter sound, that will dampen the response when you surprise it the second time with a bigger sound. Right. [00:28:58] Speaker B: Okay. [00:29:00] Speaker A: So the quiet cue, the first quiet cue has almost set the rat up for what is coming next. It's ready to expect the, the louder noise second. Right. But if you, if that rat has a sensitization dose of amphetamine. Right. So if they're whacked up on the amphetamine for a long period of time, that PPI response does not exist. [00:29:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:29:27] Speaker A: So even if you prime them first with the quiet noise, they still freak out at the second noise. [00:29:34] Speaker B: Okay. [00:29:35] Speaker A: You've got them all messed up in terms of their brains. What do we call it? Their prediction, A barren salience? They're not attaching any salience to that first thing. They're just going straight to the freak out phase all the time. And this isn't. It isn't just the case that the rat is tweaking. That's not the case. [00:29:53] Speaker B: Sure. [00:29:55] Speaker A: You know, because they don't have that constant dose of amphetamine in their system, they're more responsive to the amphetamine because of the sensitization dose. Then you're not just keeping them full of speed and shouting at them. You've established long lasting effects and jerked around with their computational psychiatry. And you can also induce other psychosis like symptoms in rats also. Right. There's a, there's a common symptom of schizophrenia in humans known as polydipsia. Right, okay. Which is a lovely word. What a lovely word. [00:30:39] Speaker B: It is a good word. Yeah. [00:30:41] Speaker A: Polydipsia, that is the tendency of humans to drink more liquids, more water than their body physically needs. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Okay. [00:30:54] Speaker A: It's a common, it's a commonly associated symptom of schizophrenia. Compulsive drinking. Now, in rats, give them the sensitization amphetamine dose. So whack them up with amphetamine every day for five days and then leave them some time. Leave them for four weeks, let the speed wear off, but they will exhibit this polydipsia response, which is, like I said, in humans, higher mammals, is a symptom of schizophrenia. It's almost as though, in simulating this is my reading of it anyway, and I. And listen, the scientific community want to break my house, into my house right now and stab me to death because I'm oversimplifying and bastardizing the science so much. But what this seems to me is if you fry the traditional dopamine responses and computational psychiatry in the rat system, it. Much like, you know, as we've said, there are lots of ways of this happening in humans, be it a disorder, be it a disease, be it a substance, be it a trauma. But if you induce that in a rat, it will exhibit the same kinds of symptoms or some of the same kinds of symptoms as a delusional or psychotic human. [00:32:19] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:32:20] Speaker A: Isn't it, though? [00:32:24] Speaker B: Yeah, this is an interesting concept, which I feel like, to your point, there's, like. I think it's complicated in ways that you're trying to break down for me that I'm not entirely, like, there on, but I do. I think this is interesting as, like, the idea of, like, computation, thinking about that as a thing that our brains are doing and that, yeah, it's essentially, you know, any kind of interference with that becomes almost like a virus to our inner computer that, you know, causes us to then, you know, not function properly, essentially. And so thinking of these things as sort of disruptions of. As some sort of, you know, invader in that way is interesting. But what does that then do? I mean, in terms of, like, what our knowledge is of these kinds of disorders. Like, does this make it so that we understand something about curing them or, you know, treating them or anything of that nature? [00:33:37] Speaker A: So the questions are on point. Right. [00:33:40] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:33:44] Speaker A: What if I talk a little bit more? I'll talk about a 2003 series of experiments. Right. Okay. A Stacy Kastner and a. Patricia Goldman racket in giving a sensitization amphetamine regime to monkeys. [00:34:05] Speaker B: Okay, Right. [00:34:07] Speaker A: So what, as night follows day, if it does something in rats, let's move on to the monkeys. Right. Let's scale this up. And giving monkeys a sensitization dose of amphetamine over six weeks, once they're sensitivized or sensitized the monkeys display behavior that has lots in common with human responses to hallucinations. Right. So when the. After the amphetamines left their body, after it's been metabolized out and the brain chemistry has been altered, the primates will exhibit grasping at thin air. So grasping at nothing. Tracking object visually with their pupils when there's nothing moving in front of them. [00:34:58] Speaker B: This, these were both things that my grandmother did when she was like, you know, struggling with dementia, like in the year before she died. [00:35:07] Speaker A: There you go. These primates manipulating objects in thin air that aren't they. Grabbing stuff that doesn't exist. Hyper vigilance, you know, always looking around them. Yeah. So what we're saying is, right, while the science around the, the kind of the, the experience of lucid dreaming that you mentioned a couple weeks ago didn't quite work for me, this is almost a flip reverse. And I can tell it isn't quite working for you, but it works for me. [00:35:38] Speaker B: Well, it's interesting because I think, you know, it's ultimately the same thing. Yours is tried out on monkeys and mice and mine was tried out on people. But like that, we do know the mechanisms by which, like, you know, in my case, like what thing in your brain you have to disrupt in order to create that kind of hallucination. [00:35:56] Speaker A: That's right. But what you can't do is ask a rat what they're feeling and seeing. [00:36:03] Speaker B: You can't, not so much. [00:36:05] Speaker A: You can't check in with a monkey and go, now, how is this manifesting to you? You know, are you hearing voices? Are you believing conspiracy theories? Are you asking the pavement people to let you in? [00:36:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:17] Speaker A: You can't get an objective view, sorry, a subjective view from the monkey's perspective of the impact this is having. But in people, you can get that. You see it exhibited in their symptoms and their behaviors and their disorders, in how it shows up. [00:36:36] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:37] Speaker A: Risk taking behavior, criminality, addictive behavior. But what I absolutely love finding out is that the chemical mechanisms and the synaptic and the fucking neurological mechanisms are reproducible, you know? [00:37:01] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And I think, yeah, like I said, I feel like. But in both of these cases, they are. I think these are two different, like, ways we understand things. And so I'm more at sea with this one than with the example that I gave. But I do think it's interesting. I think there's a lot of. And I think that right now my brain is running through like, all my other, like, neuroscience things and trying to, like, pair it, you know, make it like square with everything else that like I've read and whatnot. So I kind of like, I get what this is getting at, but I think where I'm. I don't know, I don't know what I'm lost at, but I do find it interesting. [00:37:47] Speaker A: Biggest takeaways for me, right? Biggest takeaways, yeah. Is learning that it isn't a sequential experience of the world, isn't a sequential pipeline where input reaches your brain through your sensory organs. Your brain makes decisions based on a live picture of the world around you, right? [00:38:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:06] Speaker A: It's almost more that your brain is constantly fucking whirring away, making the best possible guess it can based on the input it's getting about what it thinks is going to happen next and judging and, and amending your behavior appropriately. Right now, when for whatever reason, what your brain is perceiving is different to what it expects and dopamine responses are telling it that it should be acting a different way to what it's going on, that is where you end up with delusion. That is where you end up with psychosis. That is where you end up with hallucination and aberrant behavior. Because brain tells you thing is right, everybody else knows thing is wrong. [00:38:57] Speaker B: Mm. Science, Science. Something to noodle over, think on. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:39:10] Speaker B: Yes, please do. [00:39:12] Speaker A: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, mise en scene. [00:39:15] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said mise en scene in such a horny way before. [00:39:20] Speaker A: The way I whispered the word sex. Cannibal receipt. [00:39:22] Speaker B: Worst comes to worst. Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm fucking, I'm going to leg it. [00:39:32] Speaker B: You know how I feel about that, Mark. [00:39:35] Speaker A: I think you feel great about it. Back after hiatus. Back after a two week hiatus. And doesn't it feel good to listen to us again, eh? Doesn't it, doesn't it feel like slipping on your. A hoodie that you've found in your cupboard from last year and it's finally autumn and you're wriggling that hoodie on and you're thinking, oh, you're remembering how good it feels. You're remembering how comfortable it feels, how it hugs the contours of your body, almost like it knows the topography of your skin, almost like it's like a. Almost like you're wearing another skin. So good and comfortable, right? Does it feel that's what Corrigan and I give you. Every time we record for you, we give, you wear our skin. Right. We are giving you the permission to wear us like the skin of a loved one. Oh, gone too soon. Taken too soon. But stolen back from the cemetery. And you've got them back home, haven't you? And you've thought, well, no one's watching. Maybe I'll just wear them a little bit. We're telling you, you can do that to us for a couple of hours every week, but then you got to take us off and go back to work. It's not cool. [00:41:00] Speaker B: Put us back in the refrigerator. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Right. Until next time. But for now, you can. It's fine. [00:41:07] Speaker B: What a welcome. Greetings, everyone. It is wonderful to be back. And we have been, I mean, well, you've just been doing normal things. I was on a road trip, which was road trip of a lifetime. Right. [00:41:25] Speaker A: I'm gonna just share a few observations about your road trip from an observer's perspective. Right. Because I've, I've been enjoying this like the rest of the world has, through your photographs, through your socials, through, you know, the occasional message here and there. You seem to be having the most wonderful time and the company that you keep is exceptional. Can I just say that to you? Can I just say that? And I don't base this on hearsay. I don't base this on, you know, reputation. I base this on experience. I've met those two gals that you were with, right? [00:41:59] Speaker B: You have, yes. [00:42:00] Speaker A: And they're both fantastic. [00:42:02] Speaker B: They are. It's true. [00:42:04] Speaker A: They really are. Just, if I were to pick the best possible friends for you, I'd pick them, too. Right? [00:42:12] Speaker B: Very much agreed. Yeah. [00:42:14] Speaker A: And seeing the three of you, I don't know where you were. Wyoming, probably. [00:42:20] Speaker B: Wyoming. [00:42:21] Speaker A: Is that where you are? [00:42:22] Speaker B: Interesting? [00:42:23] Speaker A: No, eastern, in the east of Wyoming, in the kind of the island region. [00:42:27] Speaker B: Islands of Wyoming. [00:42:30] Speaker A: That's where you were, is it? [00:42:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Sounds about right. [00:42:33] Speaker A: Doing dotty things, the three of you. I, I, I just love it. And you've obviously come back. You look, you look fresh, Corrigan. [00:42:41] Speaker B: Thank you. I feel pretty fresh. Maybe a little tired, but, like, you know, it was a good time. Feel renewed, fresh. [00:42:48] Speaker A: You look as though you've been, you know, just invigorated, almost. Well, you know, like you've got all your vitamins. You look great. [00:42:58] Speaker B: Well, thank you, Marco. Yeah, it was a wonderful time. Ever since 2017, when we started traveling together, Brianne, Kristen and Kyo and me, we, we called it trip of fate because we were going to Ireland. And it was like, one of those things where it was just like we had all kind of, like, thought about it, and then things just started aligning, and then it was like, we are clearly meant to go to Ireland. And then everything we did there was like. Like, once we almost missed, like, a tour that we were supposed to go on and managed to get on at the last minute. And the tour bus driver was like, oh, you're so lucky. And we're like, that's because it's the trip of fate, man. [00:43:34] Speaker A: All right. [00:43:34] Speaker B: We. Everything goes well. So we've been doing these things, you know, over the years, traveling together and whatnot, and always have a great time. And as I've mentioned, you know, we are millennial women, and so naturally, we grew up obsessed with Anne of Green Gables. Have you ever encountered Anne of Green Gables? [00:43:52] Speaker A: No. [00:43:52] Speaker B: Your wife has never mentioned Anne of Green Gables? [00:43:56] Speaker A: No. So I'd remember Nan. Really? [00:43:59] Speaker B: Anne of Green Gables. [00:44:00] Speaker A: Anne of Green Gables hasn't really impinged on my experience of the world. [00:44:04] Speaker B: No. It's not part of your expectations. It's a book that takes place in on Prince Edward island in Canada about a little girl named Anne who was orphaned and ends up moving in with this old set of siblings. And, you know, it's kind of her growing up in this town, and she's, you know, very spunky, very, like, it's very progressive for having written and been written in, like, the late 18th century, early early 19th century, somewhere in that general scene, the late 1800s, early 1900s. Went to, like, museums about it this week, but I'm a little sleepy. Anyways, they made a series of it, or, like, it was, like, two movies, but each of one's three hours long, the other's four hours long, and they are, like, just like Bibles for many millennial women. And, you know, she was such an aspirational character. You wanted to be like, Anne. [00:45:08] Speaker A: What is a Gable? [00:45:10] Speaker B: It's. It's like a part of your. Like. Like a part of a roof or a house, like, juts out. [00:45:16] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:17] Speaker B: You know, something like that. It's. It's just what the house looks like. In fact, you can go to P.E.I. and see the house that she based it on and all the land that she based it on, and everything looks exactly as it did. Right. Her relatives live in, like, the house this is based on and have been there for, you know, over a century now. And, like, they run the, like, museum out of it. So they have, like, there's a couple rooms that are locked and you can't go into. But the rest of the house is, like, preserved from when she would have been, like, moving through there. It was like, her. Her cousin's or, like, aunts and uncle's house or whatever. So we were like, this is our pilgrimage. This trip of feet is fate. Is to go to Nova Scotia and to P.E.I. and see all the Anne of Green Gables things and whatnot. And so we did that, which was great. And then our, like, last stop on the way back, we stopped in Bangor, Maine, of course. Former home of Stephen King. Yeah, the boss. And stayed in a Stephen King themed vacation rental. [00:46:19] Speaker A: I saw. I saw the house. I saw the Stephen King house. I did not realize that you'd stopped off a Bangor. I didn't know that. [00:46:25] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. This was, like, our finishing touch on the way back through, like, looking for things. And then Kio was like, hey, there's, like, this vacation rental that's, like, new. It's brand new. This is their first season using it. That is like, all Stephen King theme. The walls are covered in Stephen King things. There's, like, costumes in the. In the closet, which terrified Kristen because it was like the two little shining girls dresses and then like, a Pennywise outfit. And Kristen, if you listen to the fan cave, you know, she does not like Pennywise. But it was, like, a really nice vacation rental. And it's right, like, just like outside the door, basically, is this big water tower that was, like, inspirational to Stephen King and writing his stories. And then, like, two blocks away is his former house. So we went and saw that with, like, the bats on the gate and all of that stuff. And someone had put, like, a little red balloon on it. So that was a cool little horror pilgrimage. [00:47:22] Speaker A: He had the accident. [00:47:24] Speaker B: I don't know where that was, to be honest with you. I would have to. I would have to investigate. But I know. I don't know where he lives now either. I just know that his. His former house. But obviously whoever lives there keeps it up. I don't know if there's rules about it. Like, you know when you buy a historic house and it's like, oh, you can't change the, like, facade on it. You can change the inside, but not the outside. Um, I don't know if there are rules about that with that house or just whoever bought it was like, yeah, fuck, yeah, I bought it for the bat gates. [00:47:55] Speaker A: It was in Maine. Yes. He was twatted by a minivan in North Lovell in Maine. [00:48:01] Speaker B: Okay. I don't know where in Maine that is but, yeah, it was a great experience to sort of close things out to that. And then the main Cabin Master store, which I know is a show you've never heard of. Cabin Masters, Main Cabin Masters. It's a show with this team of people who just renovate cabins in Maine, and we're all obsessed with it, or at least meet Kristen Are. And then we went and saw Ryan at Gibson's, which was wonderful. [00:48:31] Speaker A: Good times were had of you, of the four of you. Of you, Brie and Ryan and Kristen. Kristen is so beautiful. [00:48:43] Speaker B: It was lovely. It was a wonderful little stopover. Bought a book. I think we all bought a book at Gibson's and chatted with Ryan and whatnot. And she showed us her little, like, office space thing in the back, her workspace, which had a nice big Jack of all graves sticker I saw in the middle of it. It was a wonderful trip. So. Yeah, it was. It was a wonderful trip. Great time while I was gone. You. This was surprising to me. You did a tough mudder while I was gone. [00:49:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I did. I mean, why would that come as a surprise? [00:49:17] Speaker B: Well, there's been a couple times that you have, like, considered doing things like a marathon or things like that and then be like, nah, fuck that. So, you know, there's. [00:49:27] Speaker A: That by no means the first one I've done, I did. [00:49:29] Speaker B: No, I know you've done things of this sort, but a tough mudder is like. Is kind of miserable, and I. And you don't usually do miserable workouts. Like, that's more of my thing. [00:49:40] Speaker A: It was. It was miserable, right? [00:49:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:43] Speaker A: Or put it like this. It would have been miserable were it not for some of the people that were there. Also. [00:49:53] Speaker B: Was it a work thing? [00:49:54] Speaker A: It was. And not something that I would normally choose to do, but I. It was one of those things I agreed to do months ago, and it seemed like a great idea. [00:50:02] Speaker B: Sure. [00:50:03] Speaker A: And then it comes around and it's a Sunday, and you're like, oh, come on. [00:50:07] Speaker B: Oh, boy. [00:50:08] Speaker A: But drag my ass in. Was delighted that I did, because some. Some people I only really casually know just gave the best of themselves, you know, Just gave really of themselves in a really admirable way. And it was lovely from that. I mean, I wildly overestimated my own physical abilities. [00:50:28] Speaker B: That's the thing. Like, I did a mud run once, and I was like this. I thought I was in shape. And then you get onto something and it's like. It's not even just being in shape. It's just like a thing. Thing. You don't expect is going to be hard, you know, like, I saw your video of. This is great. I watched it with the sound off at first and was like, I don't totally understand what's going on here. And then I turned the sound on. I was like, oh, I see why he included these bits because the responses are the great part of this. But like, I saw like, the like, wall thing. Took you a couple tries to like, hit and it's like. It doesn't look like it's that hard, you know. [00:51:03] Speaker A: Oh, it's two walls. It's two walls. It's one right after the other. [00:51:06] Speaker B: Oh, I thought you. But it looked like you've dropped on the first one. [00:51:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:51:10] Speaker B: And like, I remember doing it and there was like one of those things where it's like, you know, you. You spread your arms and legs out and like, go climb up a wall or whatever. [00:51:17] Speaker A: I could. [00:51:17] Speaker B: I made no progress. I was like, I did. It doesn't look that hard. But yeah, it was very tough. [00:51:24] Speaker A: Very tough. And. [00:51:26] Speaker B: And they electrocuted you. [00:51:28] Speaker A: And. Yeah, one of the obstacles carries current. So you're running through kind of like strings that are hanging down off a grid and it's electrified and it's really painful. And that's the last thing that they suggest. [00:51:39] Speaker B: My first question, I was like, you did a tough mudder. Did they electrocute you? [00:51:43] Speaker A: Final thing that they make you do to run through the fucking in case [00:51:47] Speaker B: you had too much fun. [00:51:49] Speaker A: Yeah, but like I said, had. Had it been with a different group of people or had I been doing it on my own or with randoms. You can't do it on your own. You can't. There's no way to be able to do that on your own. Then it probably would have just been misery. But it was a real treat to see people give the best side of themselves and to put. Put the group, you know, first. It was wonderful but incredible in that I was still suffering days. I'm still suffering now. I mean, I. I noticed I see this bruiser among. See that bruise? [00:52:20] Speaker B: What the man? [00:52:21] Speaker A: You see that? [00:52:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I can see that. [00:52:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm still covered in. We're over a week, in fact, a week. We're a week away and I'm still finding. Still covered in bruises, was still walking on kind of shaky legs on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Yeah, I. This is. This is I it over shares. Jack of all graves, you're wearing us like skin. I showered. I think it was on Wednesday of this week, or maybe it was Tuesday of this week. 48 hours later and a piece of hay fell out of my ass crack. Piece of hay, if you can believe that. [00:52:58] Speaker B: Just, I was saving that. [00:53:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know if. I don't know how that can happen, but incredible. Days, days after and several baths and showers later and I'm still pulling tritus. My cavities. [00:53:11] Speaker B: You don't even have like hair to get it stuck in. It's just exactly incredible. Amazing. You've also got a shiner. Your bruises everywhere. [00:53:19] Speaker A: You could be forgiven physically for looking at me and thinking, mark, do you need to call the BBC action line? [00:53:30] Speaker B: You know, you look like you've been through some. [00:53:33] Speaker A: Do you. Is everything okay? Blink twice, you know. Etc. I look like I've been punched. Yeah. I have not. I have simply yes. Was that today or was it yesterday? It was yesterday. I went to the clinic. I had another little bubbly cyst in my eyelid taken out and it was really, really painful. And yes, those of you, well, maybe you could maybe want to share this. [00:53:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:58] Speaker A: Very pronounced facial bruising there, which is pleasant. [00:54:03] Speaker B: It's very nice. [00:54:05] Speaker A: I. I think it makes it look kind of dangerous. Kind of tough, dangerous night crew, you know. [00:54:10] Speaker B: Yeah. The super thick glasses maybe negate it a little bit, but if you're wearing contacts, you look pretty, you know, I wouldn't deal with you. And of course, telling you, my sister of course, has so many bodily ailments and things like that. So she had like recommendations for you on how to prevent this from happening again. She's like, oh, tell them to get this stuff that like, you know, though, or like go to this procedure and they'll just squeeze out his little glands every now and again. [00:54:38] Speaker A: I think it's easy. It's definitely the second time I've had to go and have them cut. I think it might even be the third. And I'm by now, I'm so confident in the process. [00:54:49] Speaker B: You're just like, I'll just go get them cut out. [00:54:51] Speaker A: I think I'm gonna not. No, no as in I. I'm pretty sure. [00:54:53] Speaker B: Oh, you think you're gonna do it? [00:54:55] Speaker A: I think I will if it happens again, you know. [00:54:57] Speaker B: You know, so my sister does do this also. I made the mistake of telling you because healthcare is shit in America. And so she cuts them out herself. Well, except now she just goes and gets them like, basically it's like, you know how, like. Yeah. Have you had pet dogs, Mark? [00:55:15] Speaker A: I have. [00:55:18] Speaker B: You know how when you go to like the groomer, they have to like express their Anal glands. [00:55:23] Speaker A: I've heard that term used. I've never seen that happening and I've, I've never been party to it. [00:55:28] Speaker B: You've never experienced it because if you don't like express them, they get like a build up in them and then like it can come out at horrible times and it smells like they're like a rotting corpse, essentially. It's truly horrific. But basically what my sister was saying is you can have someone essentially express your eyelid every couple months and that will keep you from having to operate on your own. [00:55:55] Speaker A: I will look into that. I mean, look at. [00:55:58] Speaker B: I gave you the name of it that my sister gave you there. If you want to avoid you or anyone else putting a scalpel in your eye, apparently they can express you like a dog's ass. [00:56:09] Speaker A: Nice, nice, nice. No, I'm reasonably sure I know what caused this round, so I, I should be good from here. [00:56:16] Speaker B: But what do you think? [00:56:19] Speaker A: Well, if you think back, listen, feel free to skip ahead. You don't care about this, listeners. If you think back a month ago, I got a little scrape on my cornea, did I not? [00:56:30] Speaker B: Yeah, you did indeed. [00:56:32] Speaker A: That I had to not wear my contacts for a. That I had to put like a vitamin gunk in my eye. I'm certain that that led to the oil gland blockage which caused this particular round of lesions. [00:56:46] Speaker B: That would make sense. [00:56:48] Speaker A: That's what it was. [00:56:49] Speaker B: Thankfully you are gunk free now. [00:56:51] Speaker A: Gunk free. And next time it's some numbing drops. I think I could use like maybe a little closed peg or something to hold the eyelid down. Snicker, squeeze. And good to go. [00:57:03] Speaker B: I just don't think you have good enough vision to be doing that. [00:57:08] Speaker A: Oh, that is a great point. Oh, that is a great point. [00:57:12] Speaker B: You have to be able to see it as you're doing it. And that's, I think, gonna be a little bit of a problem. [00:57:17] Speaker A: That is a great point. [00:57:17] Speaker B: I can't. No, go get your eyes expressed. [00:57:21] Speaker A: Maybe one of the boys, Maybe Peter. [00:57:23] Speaker B: Yeah, there we go. And this is how they'll start their career in the surgery. [00:57:29] Speaker A: I think Owen would do it. [00:57:31] Speaker B: Oh, Owen would absolutely do it. [00:57:32] Speaker A: He's. [00:57:32] Speaker B: I don't think. I don't know if you want Owen to do it. [00:57:35] Speaker A: Exactly. He's the only one of them that would do it. But he's the one of them that I don't want doing it. [00:57:39] Speaker B: Shouldn't. It's a real, real bind you've got yourself in. [00:57:44] Speaker A: It's a real conundrum. [00:57:48] Speaker B: Well, besides that medical horror. Just want to say thank you to everyone for coming out to book club, which was wonderful yesterday. So many people made it out. We had. It was the first time for Andy at the book club. So welcome. Yeah. But yes, lots of, lots of our regular gang there and everybody loved the book, which was the Eyes Were the Best Part by Monica Kim. Could not recommend it more abs. I. This was on like one day of the road trip. We were staying in Halifax and I sat down on the couch, couch before everyone got up and I was like, oh, I'm gonna start the book club book. You know, that way I won't be like, you know, rushing to get it done on Saturday. And I started reading it and got really into it. And then that night came back and I was like, I'll read a little more. And then I was like, I'm just going to finish it. And so I was up till 2am reading the book and was like, yeah, that was. That doesn't happen to me too often. I'm a pretty sleepy. But that one had me staying up and reading it. So the Eyes, the Best part by Monica Kim was great. Next month we are reading the Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. [00:58:55] Speaker A: Will, it's such a great feeling, isn't it, not being able to tear yourself away from not being able to put one down. So good. [00:59:02] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's my favorite and I am like, I've read nine books this month. [00:59:08] Speaker A: This month. [00:59:09] Speaker B: This month, yes. [00:59:10] Speaker A: It's a lot, isn't it? [00:59:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm usually a two to four books a month reader, but I've. I've hit nine and I'm quite enjoying now my book era, which has been delightful. But yes, we're reading the Only Good Indians next month. It should be a lively book club for many reasons including I don't really vibe with Stephen Graham Jones writing, but like, he's one of those ones that like, if you like him, he's like, you absolutely love him. So if you want to read that, get in on all of that action. Come to the book club third Saturday of every month on the Discord. [00:59:49] Speaker A: So cool. I mean, you know, I'm still very much with the assistance of the wonderful Ryan. So I'm still very much in my book era and have been just gobbling them down. Me just a couple of books lately have not touched the sides. One called the Night Guest by an Icelandic author whose name is interesting. Do bear with me. The Night Guest, beautiful, lonely, solipsistic mystery, kind of almost told from the first person point of view Mystery horror about a. A lady living a solitary life in an Icelandic city. And she has her work and she has her distant relationship with her parents and she has her home and her relationships and her kind of yearning and her dissatisfaction and her ennui with life until. Ah, wait a minute. I've stopped sleeping. Wait a minute. Is there somebody else in my home? Is there somebody else. Ooh, you know. Yeah. Being haunted and stalked? [01:01:16] Speaker B: Or is it Aberrant salience? [01:01:18] Speaker A: Exactly this by a. Hilda Knutsdotter. [01:01:24] Speaker B: Oh, right. I remember seeing that. Well, you had showed me that book that you're reading it and then it was like 20 minutes later I went on Storygraph and someone else, a friend on my storygraph was also reading a book by her. Not the same one, but I was like, oh, I had never heard of this person till just now. [01:01:41] Speaker A: I'm. I tell you something, I'm a sucker for expressive typography and formatting in a book. [01:01:49] Speaker B: Oh, interesting, right? [01:01:51] Speaker A: I. In. In. In the same way as I'm a fan of immersive kind of cinematography and almost making the format a character, I am a massive fan of experiments in typography and formatting in books that can make the actual act of reading it evocative of the story that's being told. [01:02:14] Speaker B: That's so interesting because I am the exact opposite of that. [01:02:17] Speaker A: I imagine you would be. Yes. [01:02:19] Speaker B: It's a, like a silly reason, though. And I thought everybody always laughs at me for this, but I don't read anything that isn't in, like the primary font, you know, because I think it came from, like, textbooks growing up that there'd be like a little box. It was like a. Did, you know, like a fun fact kind of thing. And like my brain goes, oh, so I don't need to read that. And so if it's an italics, if it's in bold, if it's like in any way form, if it's in a poem form, like stanzas, I will not read it. My brain just shuts all the way off. I can't. Like, every time I try to read a poem, I'll like, read through it like six or seven times. I'm like, no words went into my brain because it was not formatted in the normal way. [01:03:08] Speaker A: So, yeah, night. Guess it doesn't fuck about so much with the words on the page, but more the cadence of page turns and chapters. [01:03:17] Speaker B: Okay, I can get behind that. [01:03:20] Speaker A: Almost entire chapters are given over to just two or three sentences of thoughts. [01:03:27] Speaker B: I do like that. [01:03:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I love That. I fucking love that. So you're turning pages and almost letting that one line land. It resonates. The impact of particular revelations and lines and breakthroughs, just accompanying you with that act of turning a page is super fucking hot. I love it. [01:03:50] Speaker B: What was the. It was the night guest. [01:03:52] Speaker A: It was the night guest. [01:03:53] Speaker B: Night guest. All right. [01:03:55] Speaker A: And it's fantastic. And also I will talk of the House that Eats the Dead. I think that's what it called. [01:04:02] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Did you finish it? [01:04:04] Speaker A: Finish it today? Yes. All right. [01:04:06] Speaker B: Because. Yes, yesterday you sent that one to me. [01:04:09] Speaker A: Yep. That was a. A 24 hour read. [01:04:12] Speaker B: Nice. [01:04:12] Speaker A: And when I say 24 hour read, I was. I just couldn't operate. I was. I was reading while I was waiting at the hospital. House that Eats the Dead. Just great. High concept. But look, it's easy to imagine what if your house had a supernatural ability to dispose of dead tissue and dead people and dead things, but what might that actually do in the real world? I love that. What might be the actual, real implications of that? How would you use it? How would it change you? How would you know? How would it appeal to the best and worst instincts of someone if you could just make your crimes disappear? [01:04:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Interesting. [01:05:01] Speaker A: Oh, I love my reading. [01:05:04] Speaker B: Well, just since we have a couple books that we talked about here, the one I will recommend from our road trip here, we actually listened to a book called Eden Undone while we were in the car and, you know, switch it up from listening the same playlists over and over again. And this is a wild book about these people in the 1990s, 20s and 30s who decided to move to the Galapagos thinking that they could start like a utopia there, essentially. [01:05:37] Speaker A: With the tortoises. With the turtles. [01:05:39] Speaker B: With the. With the tortoises. Yes. And every single one of these people who decided to do this, they're not connected to each other. Different groups of people. I think 10 is kind of the total of people who go down there at various times. But they're all horrible, just absolutely terrible people who then can't get along with each other in this little space. And it very. This is a true story, but it feels like an allegory for hell. Like, I remember when I was a kid, my. My fourth grade teacher, he showed us this comic, right? And it was a comic that was like, about hell. And it was like all the people, or it was like heaven in one panel and hell in the other one. It was what was the difference? Or whatever. And it's like in either one, they have like their arms are like big chopsticks. And that like the difference in this was that in heaven they figured out to like, you could use them to feed someone else with your big long arms. But in hell, everyone was so selfish that they just couldn't feed themselves. Right. Because their arms were big long chopsticks. And this is what this compelling feels like. Right? Is these. This group of people who go down here and they should all be able to help each other live in this environment, but they're all such assholes that they make it impossible to live with each other and spend years living here just in misery for various reasons until obviously some murders happen. As of course is going to happen in such a situation. So Eden Undone. Highly recommended. Apparently there. If there's a movie on Netflix called Eden that is about this, but apparently it's not very good. So just read the book and it's fucking wild. [01:07:28] Speaker A: Excellent. I was good. I was reaching for a link that has just occurred to me after I'd finished talking about it. When I talk about the house that eats the dead, that was. It's that particular gimmick of what. How does the gimmick of your book impact the actual real world around? The gimmick? Yeah, that's what I enjoyed so much about incidents around the house. AKA other Mommy, which is coming out. [01:07:53] Speaker B: Which I did see the trailer for today. Well, kind of. I look down because I want to read the book before I. I didn't want to know anything about it. [01:07:59] Speaker A: Really ought to read the book. [01:08:00] Speaker B: It's on my shelf. I can see it right now. [01:08:02] Speaker A: The film seems like something you could just pretty much disregard. [01:08:06] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. [01:08:06] Speaker A: Really? [01:08:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:09] Speaker A: You know, knowing what we know. [01:08:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:14] Speaker A: About journeyman Rob Savage. I don't think. [01:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah, no, not. I don't have expectations for it. I just didn't want the book to be in any way ruined by me seeing the trailer. [01:08:24] Speaker A: But the book does that gimmick exceptionally well. It shows you the gimmick and then it shows you the gimmick through the lens of a world that, you know, like, fuck me. How would that actually look in reality? Ah, horrible. Scary. [01:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah. I think when we talked about. Did you read when the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy? [01:08:48] Speaker A: No, I did not. Okay. [01:08:49] Speaker B: So I think like kind of we read those around the same time and it has that similar, like, oh, this like, crosses over into like the actual world. It's not just like this kid in their house being scared by a thing, but like, this has implications beyond that, which I think is fun. [01:09:05] Speaker A: And, you know, I love you Know, I love fiction where otherworldly phenomena is subjected to rational viewpoints. Like, wouldn't it be cool if we could study a Gribbly. If we could. [01:09:20] Speaker B: Right, yeah. [01:09:22] Speaker A: You know, submit one to the scientific method. How would that impact what we think we know about the world? [01:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [01:09:29] Speaker A: Oh God, I love that. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Well, on this note, why don't we talk about what we've watched? [01:09:35] Speaker A: We can do that now. I celebrated 911 this year. Yeah. By weird. Owen seemed really super into 911 this year. [01:09:46] Speaker B: Huh. Interesting. [01:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah, we had a good long talk about 911 over dinner. [01:09:52] Speaker B: Fascinating. [01:09:54] Speaker A: He was super into 911. He was asking lots of questions about the war on terror. [01:09:59] Speaker B: Okay, interesting. [01:10:00] Speaker A: And you know, I told him about how much changed about how much of, you know, what we. What they. He and Pete would have just grown up with as being normal life. [01:10:12] Speaker B: Right. [01:10:13] Speaker A: Aviation and security and whatnot. Talked about Afghanistan, talked about, you know, the Taliban. Right, yeah, but all that stuff. Yeah, about. About Britain's involvement, about labor, about Tony Blair and Bush. [01:10:29] Speaker B: Wow. [01:10:30] Speaker A: The Axis, you know, talks about the operation, you know, war on terror, weapons of mass destruction, mass misinformation. Talked about it all. We talked about it all. And because he seemed interested all the way through that conversation, we as a family unit, me and Laura and the boys enjoyed Paul Greengrass's United 93. [01:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah, this is a. I don't know, it's. It's really interesting for me that you guys like sat down and watched. This is a thing I would never in a million years watch. I don't. I don't do 9-11-Media. Especially not like fictionalized or not like fictionalized, but like, you know what I mean? Like Hollywood sensationalized versions of things which. And forever. I've heard this is a really good movie. It's just. I think it is. Like I. It wasn't like very traumatic time, you know, I had like. Yes, my. My next door neighbor's cousin, you know, was just late for work and that's the only reason he isn't dead. During that, you know, we spent the day trying to get a hold of David, you know, things like that. I live in a town where we have memorials to all the people from Montclair who died in it. [01:11:49] Speaker A: You know, I've seen that. [01:11:50] Speaker B: Yeah. You've seen. Well, that was like a larger memorial. Not just the Montclair one that I took you to, but like all over to. If you go into any bar here, there's like 911 stuff and pictures of the people who died and, and stuff like that. And so it's like a very, like. I don't know, I. I don't have the like, detachment really to like, watch those things. And some people, and people here do it, and especially if they're. You're younger and you don't have like any connection to this kind of thing. But I always, like, like last podcast on the Left did a series on it and it's like when you really get into like, how horrific this was for the people who were on these planes, who were in these buildings and things like that, it is so horrifying as an event. I, I just, I don't want to engage with it from like a fiction perspective, you know, as is. [01:12:42] Speaker A: You're right, of course. [01:12:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So it was interesting to me that like, you. You guys sat and like, watched this movie together. It's just like, no, I will not. I will not be doing that. [01:12:50] Speaker A: Yeah, we did. We watched the entire thing. And what, What I found was, you know, preconceptions about what you might expect from a Paul Greengrass film notwithstanding. [01:13:01] Speaker B: Sure. [01:13:02] Speaker A: A. Just a absolute gripper of a film. Just a gripper. [01:13:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:09] Speaker A: And not. I look, I'm. Please do queue up and tell me that I'm wrong, but I found it as sensitively, sensitively handled. I don't know, it didn't seem sensationalist to me at all. The real time gimmick is done beautifully. The sense of cascading terror amongst people who you don't want to see terrified. You know what I mean? Air traffic control and military and pilots, people just with no frame of reference for what is going on around them. [01:13:50] Speaker B: Right. [01:13:50] Speaker A: Just bit by bit the, the picture of what is happening comes into focus and there is no music. You know what I mean? There is no. I don't believe there is no, you know, air quotes effects to speak of. Everything is in camera and right there on screen and in the dialogue and in the performances. I look without. As a, as an outsider looking in. If I, if you, if you were, if you were to watch one piece of 911 Corrigan. [01:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:25] Speaker A: Maybe give, maybe give United 93 a try, you know. [01:14:28] Speaker B: Yes, certainly the one I watch is not going to be a plane crash movie, but. Yeah, no, from everything that I've heard, that's. That's, you know, because there was another United 93 movie with like a very similar title that came out like at the exact same time as this one. And like, I think this one is considered. There's a Wesley Snipes one, I'm sure [01:14:48] Speaker A: there's like a dyad on a plane with Wesley Snipes. Is that one of them? [01:14:52] Speaker B: I. I don't know. I don't know who he would be in this story. [01:14:59] Speaker A: Maybe it's not a 911. [01:15:01] Speaker B: I'm gonna say probably not a 911 movie, but everything I've heard about this particular one. Oh, I think the other One was called Flight 93. [01:15:08] Speaker A: Okay. Wesley Snipes was in Passenger 57 from 1992. No, that's not. [01:15:14] Speaker B: That's not a 9 11. This is not a 911 movie. Yeah, but I've heard good things about this one. It's just, you know, enough real horror frames, 9, 11. That I'm good, I think. Oh, Wesley Snipes. I was like, boy, I. That just seems wrong. The wrong vibe. But I went to the movies yesterday and I saw Prime Time, which. [01:15:52] Speaker A: Prime Time. No, that is the Pedo Hunter movie. [01:15:57] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. Did To Catch a Predator have like, any impact over there? Were there, like, any copycats or anything like that on that side? [01:16:04] Speaker A: Oh, no, no. Certainly not. Springer made a big impact over here. Right. His. His format was. The carcass of that format was just picked dry by so many pretenders. [01:16:19] Speaker B: Same here. Yeah, absolutely. [01:16:21] Speaker A: The To Catch a Predator format. I'm certain that legalities would have prevented [01:16:27] Speaker B: that from happening, as it should have here as well. [01:16:30] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:16:31] Speaker B: Very sketchy. And, yeah, Prime Time is about To Catch a Predator, and it's host, Chris Hansen. I was really looking forward to this one. I like the vibes of the trailer. And, you know, I'm. To Catch a Predator was part of Dateline, and we both know how much I love Dateline, of course. And so I was really interested in this. I don't know. It's. The problem with primetime, to me, is it's so stylized that it feels fictional. Like, where you're like. I just assume nothing in this happened. Like, none of these in every way, both in terms of the. Like, the cinematography and things like that makes everything feel very, like, dreamlike and over the top and, like, very much for the film. And not like this would be what life was actually like. The way that people act, you know, is not like people. Robert Pattinson's great. He's wonderful to watch, but also, I [01:17:27] Speaker A: like him more and more as I get older. [01:17:29] Speaker B: He's the best. [01:17:30] Speaker A: He's very cool, isn't he? Is TCAP still on tcap, which is what the kids. [01:17:35] Speaker B: No, not exactly. Anyway, he has created. It's so funny that you say that, because I had you Download that documentary Predators so that I could watch it after watching primetime. And there's, like, this, like, copycat guy on YouTube who's talking about, like, someone. One of the predators he catches is like, oh, this. Actually, I've seen some of your videos. I think it's better than, you know, To Catch a Predator. But he's like. He said it was better than tcap, which is, like, really cool. I was like, people call. Call it tcap. I've never heard that. Yeah. But no, he does something kind of similar now on the Internet. But, like. Yeah, it's just the legality of the shit is, like, insane. There's, like, no way this ever should have happened. And it, like, would have been cool if it kind of, like, went into some of that stuff, but this is, like, so over the top in all these ways that. And, like, doesn't seem to have anything. Yeah, it's very superficial. It doesn't really, like, talk about any particular thing, and it doesn't have anything to say about, like, child predators, about the legality or ethics of what he's doing, you know, any of this kind of stuff. Like, it all just feels like it's all kind of, like, glossed over in favor of just more of, like, you know, loud, stylized film. [01:18:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:18:52] Speaker B: And so I was a little disappointed in that one as someone who, like, feels like I was, like, kind of the target audience for this. And, like, when I left the theater, there was a couple walking out behind me, a guy and a girl, and they were talking, and then she went, wait, this was a real show? Was it popular? [01:19:06] Speaker A: Oh, no. [01:19:06] Speaker B: And I'm like, see if you don't know this was real. [01:19:10] Speaker A: After watching the movie. [01:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like, that is pretty damning that she watched this whole thing and had no idea this was about a real show. So Prime Time was not my bag. [01:19:24] Speaker A: Feels like a shame. Yeah. It feels like there are questions there that could have been asked. Yes, it was like, there are. [01:19:30] Speaker B: You know, there's a lot you can pull from this. And, like. Like I said, he was great in this. Skyler Gizondo, who I really like, is wonderful in just. [01:19:40] Speaker A: And you know what? [01:19:41] Speaker B: It's a waste. [01:19:42] Speaker A: You don't get the chance to make movies about a particular topic more than once. [01:19:48] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. Like, that's it. That's the movie, you know, so you. [01:19:53] Speaker A: Nobody can now, those questions now in the. In the broader arena, in the cinematic arena, aren't gonna get asked. [01:20:00] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. So basically, just gotta. Hey, reality TV sure is shitty, isn't it movie like. Yeah, Yep, it is. Okay. [01:20:12] Speaker A: In a similar way. I can't remember what the movie was called, but it was the first ever found footage movie filmed underwater. [01:20:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. [01:20:23] Speaker A: Remember that? [01:20:23] Speaker B: Yep. Deep House, maybe. [01:20:25] Speaker A: Deep House. Very possibly. Great idea. And it was terrible. And they burned. [01:20:31] Speaker B: Yep, that's it. You can't do that again because it's going to be derivative of the shitty movie Deep House. [01:20:35] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:20:37] Speaker B: What else you watch? [01:20:39] Speaker A: What else? Well, what do you want to talk about? Let's take a look, shall we? It's been a couple of weeks. I'm sure we got more here. I took another look through Evil Dead Burn. [01:20:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I noticed you did that. [01:20:50] Speaker A: It's still. Sorry, I'm not. I'm not knocking off. I'm not taking off a single half a star. It's still. I'm still enjoying it as five stars because I'm reading with my heart and I had as much fun second time as I did first. It's appalling amounts of fun. [01:21:06] Speaker B: Well, good, right? [01:21:09] Speaker A: I saw more levity in it the second time. I saw more humor in it the second time. I saw more of something like Drag me to Hell the second time around. The. You know, it. It delights in throwing bodily fluids at you, this film. Evil Dead Burn. [01:21:29] Speaker B: Sure does. [01:21:30] Speaker A: You know what I'm saying? It delights. It mixes violence with just body grimness. The. The horror of rot and decay and, you know, puncture wounds and trauma. It. It revels in that. And I will always enjoy that. It's something I will always enjoy to watch. So, no, I know that it's been a divisive chapter, but not to me. I loved it and I'll continue to watch it. And I've got the Steelbook on pre order. [01:22:05] Speaker B: Well, good. Well, speaking of rewatching something and liking it, you know. Well, I guess more for me, while we were at the Stephen King house, I was like, we clearly have to watch, like a Stephen King movie. And so I was kind of. I basically had like a list of ones that I was like, oh, the girls might enjoy watching this. And I was like, all right, pick one. And we ended up watching the most recent version of Salem's Lot, which you and I watched together. And we were like, yeah, it's pretty. It's fine. You know. [01:22:32] Speaker A: Did we. [01:22:33] Speaker B: We did, yes. But it was like two years ago. I think it's 2024. So. Yeah, has Lewis Pullman. That was kind of the. The selling point. I was like, has Lewis Pullman. I was like, yeah, we'll Watch that. And we watched that together, and you know what? It's just so much fun. It is a fun, fun movie with fun characters who you can get behind. And I don't have, like, an attachment to the book. I don't know what's different about it. I don't like the original miniseries that a lot of people are, like, really attached to. I think it's deeply boring. So this version is just like a likable cast that you enjoy watching in this sort of vampire survival situation. And we all had so much fun watching this together. A good movie for, like. It is a great party movie, you know, kind of thing. Right. When you have a whole bunch of people together and you want to watch it, it gives you everything you need for that kind of situation. [01:23:30] Speaker A: I want to take another run at that because again, I. I have no memory of it. [01:23:35] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, none, probably. A lot of movies that. [01:23:39] Speaker A: What's that again? [01:23:40] Speaker B: That we watched that you have no recollection of. But. But, yeah, I thought Salem's Lot was a delightful time with friends, so, you know. [01:23:48] Speaker A: Isn't it? It's October this week, isn't it? [01:23:50] Speaker B: It is, yeah. [01:23:51] Speaker A: Okay, so time to. Time to turn it up again. [01:23:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Hunker down. [01:23:56] Speaker A: Yep. For sure. Let me see what else we got. [01:23:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:59] Speaker A: Oh, I'll talk briefly on Supergirl. Did you ever get around to watching? [01:24:03] Speaker B: I did, yeah. Did not enjoy. [01:24:06] Speaker A: Kind of forgettable, isn't it? [01:24:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't understand. I think I might have said this when I talked about it on here, but I just don't understand, like, amongst the many issues with this movie, that is not fun as it should be. I don't understand why there's a sex. Sex trafficking plot in it when it's, like, about a girl trying to get her dog back. Like, why did. This should be a fun movie? Why is there sex trafficking of small children? [01:24:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you know what? That even passed me by. Yeah, I know what you're saying. You put it like that, and it is a little bit of a head scratcher. Yeah. Time has been really unkind to that because obviously the brief to the director was make it like Guardians of the Galaxy. [01:24:58] Speaker B: Right? Exactly. Yeah. [01:25:00] Speaker A: And time has been. Time has moved on. The world has moved on, I think, from that absolute chaotic color explosion, constant needle drops. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly this. Exactly this. And, oh, my word, the other. [01:25:19] Speaker B: The. [01:25:20] Speaker A: The shoehorned in music cues are. [01:25:22] Speaker B: Yeah, they're awful. Yeah. [01:25:24] Speaker A: Absolutely dreadful in this movie. Every single frame packed with just rigmarole. And this and that, you know. [01:25:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh. [01:25:33] Speaker A: Oh, God. It's tiring. [01:25:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. [01:25:38] Speaker A: It's exhausting. [01:25:40] Speaker B: Pretty much. Yeah. That. That explains it. [01:25:44] Speaker A: So tiring. I'm so tired just thinking about it. [01:25:48] Speaker B: We won't make you think more about Supergirl. [01:25:50] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, let's move on. [01:25:52] Speaker B: I watched. Hold on. I have one more thing before we. [01:25:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. [01:25:58] Speaker B: That. What was loaded. See if a bone to pick me with me here. No, but the other thing that I watched was on the recommendation of someone on Blue Sky. I watched Hide and Seek, which is from like 2002, 2003, somewhere in that vicinity. It's like, early to sometime in the 2000s. [01:26:17] Speaker A: What's the Sydney Sweeney one? Ready or not. [01:26:20] Speaker B: That's not Sydney Sweeney, but ready or [01:26:23] Speaker A: not, it's not Sydney Sweeney. [01:26:24] Speaker B: It's tomorrow. Wow. How dare you. [01:26:28] Speaker A: Yeah, you. [01:26:29] Speaker B: You get your Samara Weaving. I know you are taken away for that. [01:26:32] Speaker A: Immaculate was on last night, so that's why I've done that. It was just a name thing. Physically. I've got a clear idea. [01:26:40] Speaker B: No. Hide and Seek is a movie with Robert De Niro and Dakota fanning from, yeah, 20 plus years ago. And he is basically the father of Dakota Fanning and her mother. Yeah, I'm sure at the time. Yeah. Her mother commits suicide, kills herself in the bathtub. He's like, all right, we're gonna move to, like, the country. Basically move up to upstate New York because they live in Manhattan at the time. But then there's, like, weird things going on, and Dakota Fanning has, like, what's seemingly like an imaginary friend named Charlie, and bad starts happening around the house, which she blames on Charlie. And her dad is, you know, a psychiatrist, and Famke Janssen is his psychiatrist friend. And they're both trying to, like, be. Go easy on her because she's lost her mother and she's externalizing it this way. But then maybe Charlie actually is real and. [01:27:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm certain I've seen this. [01:27:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. I think this is a good one for, like, your, like, Halloween time list. You know, it's like just very, very old school of that era kind of horror, you know, pretty New York, upstate New York views, spooky things happening in the house, creepy kid, you know, creepy neighbors that you're never quite sure what's going on. It's just a fun watch, you know, Nothing that's gonna change your life. Just a fun time watching Hide and Seek. [01:28:11] Speaker A: De Niro, paying the bills. [01:28:13] Speaker B: De Niro. It very much is. It's that it's that time that, like, you were like, you know, how we all used to think of De Niro as, you know, this big guy? And I was like, no, because I was in high school or whatever when this came out. I was in Paying the Bills De Niro era. And this is absolutely one of those. But it's. It's very fun. [01:28:32] Speaker A: Okay. [01:28:32] Speaker B: All right, now we can move on to the one that you want. [01:28:34] Speaker A: Now we can move on. All right, so what I did see this week is a movie that I think will, in the. In the final analysis at the end of 2026, be my film of the year. I think this is my film of the year, really. Right. [01:28:52] Speaker B: Okay. [01:28:54] Speaker A: In terms of, you know, I let my experience of watching a film inform. [01:28:59] Speaker B: Yes. [01:29:00] Speaker A: How much I enjoy the film as much as the film itself. [01:29:03] Speaker B: Right. [01:29:04] Speaker A: So this film did have a lot going for it. [01:29:07] Speaker B: Okay. [01:29:08] Speaker A: Firstly, I caught this movie about a month after release. It's been. It's been out for about a month. [01:29:15] Speaker B: Oh, we're talking about something else here. [01:29:16] Speaker A: Oh, what are you talking about? [01:29:18] Speaker B: Well, the way that you were talking about it, I thought we were talking about Resident Evil. And we are. [01:29:23] Speaker A: We are. [01:29:24] Speaker B: A month after release. [01:29:25] Speaker A: I think it's been out for a month by now. [01:29:27] Speaker B: It's been out for two days here. No, maybe a week. Maybe it's been out a week because I would have gone and seen it if it had come out before then, but. Yeah, I think it came out last Thursday. [01:29:39] Speaker A: Well, I'll be hanged, because here it's been since September 17th, so 10 days. Yeah. Not a month. [01:29:47] Speaker B: Not a month. [01:29:49] Speaker A: My point still stands, though. Right? [01:29:51] Speaker B: Go ahead. [01:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that, you know, almost two weeks after release on a Thursday night, packed out cinema. Right. Which, you know, I adore. [01:30:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:09] Speaker A: We are still, you know, this. You can't. Surely, after a sustained period of absolutely incredibly healthy box office, you can't continue calling it a horror boom. [01:30:23] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. This is just how it is when you make. [01:30:26] Speaker A: This is no bubble. Right. [01:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:28] Speaker A: This is a genre in the best health. I think it's probably ever been as critically, as commercially respected and rewarded as I've ever, ever seen it. Right. So that was one thing which I went into this movie enjoying. Just enjoyed seeing a horror movie in the theater with people and with Peter. [01:30:48] Speaker B: Right, Right. Yeah. So fun. [01:30:50] Speaker A: Oh, man. Could I, as a young man, have dreamed of going with my son to the movies to see a horror film? Could I ever have dreamed of that? [01:31:00] Speaker B: Living the dream. [01:31:02] Speaker A: Dreamed of that as a kid? No. So the circumstances Were great. Just the two of us. Packed cinema, middle of the week horror movie. The word of mouth, you know, was ringing in my ears. The box office is ringing in my ears. I was predisposed and primed to give this movie the very best of my goodwill. [01:31:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And do you like Resident Evil? Like the game? [01:31:28] Speaker A: Yes, I do. [01:31:29] Speaker B: Okay. [01:31:30] Speaker A: I have a big soft spot for the games. I love how they are. I love how defiant they are in refusing to koto to people who want them to be something they're not. Right. Resident Evil. Much like in the same way as I feel similarly towards Metal Gear. It is what it is, and if you love it, you love it. And you know, millions of people do. Resident Evil has a massive fan base. It's not what you'd call a cult series by any. [01:32:02] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [01:32:02] Speaker A: But the particular core mechanics and characters and idiosyncrasies of the series remain unchanged. And if anything, I've gotten more kind of, if. If you don't get it, you're never going to get it, and it doesn't care. It's going to carry on Resident Eviling whether you play it or not. [01:32:18] Speaker B: Sure. [01:32:19] Speaker A: Right. And I love that. I adore that. Now, that's something that the original series of Resident Evil got completely wrong. Right. But nothing really in common with that idiosyncratic nature of what it is to play a Resident Evil game. And I. I, you know, much like. Much like being a fan of Weezer. Right. To really enjoy or Doctor who, to enjoy some properties, you've gotta come to terms and be comfortable with them being inconsistent. [01:32:51] Speaker B: Right. [01:32:51] Speaker A: Difficult. Sometimes that's part of the ride. Anything worth loving is worth loving when it's not always great. Right. And there have been some Resident Evil games that I've bounced off of that I've. That I've done wrong. And I've got. I've sunk like 15 hours into it and I'm. I'm almost finished and I've run out of ammo and I'm in a corridor in front of me and there's a gribbly behind me and I can't get anywhere. And I've just thrown it down in disgust, never to be returned to again. Right? That happens. But this film does things with that. Right? This movie does things with that. Truth about Resident Evil. It's very interesting to me what this film does, and I'm not for a second saying that if you don't enjoy Resident Evil or if you don't really know your way around what Resident Evil is, you. You know, But I am. [01:33:55] Speaker B: I do think it would have helped because I could see that it was doing things that I was like, I don't know what it's doing, but I can see it's doing a thing. [01:34:02] Speaker A: Familiarity with Resident Evil unlocks something in this film for you because it's so good, it gets Resident Evil. So. Right. [01:34:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:15] Speaker A: And. And that, that, that means more than, oh, look, here's the thing that you recognize viewer. [01:34:21] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [01:34:24] Speaker A: Which I generally. I hate. Right? [01:34:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:26] Speaker A: I hate films that. That confuse familiarity for quality. Oh, I'm showing you a thing. You are familiar with this thing. Isn't this. Right. I hate Easter eggs for the sake of it off. [01:34:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:38] Speaker A: But what Resident Evil is great at is reminding you of Core Mechanics from Resident Evil. Building them into the fucking movie, man. [01:34:52] Speaker B: Right. [01:34:53] Speaker A: And making them a part of the film. As frustrating as they are, as, you know, hyper real as they can be, you know, objects that you need to work together, often appearing in completely different areas and being laborious to go back and forth and being frustrating. This character's experience. It's almost like. What's that movie with Ryan Rounds, Free Guy, where a guy finds himself in a video game, but he's not within the video game. It's almost like this guy has found himself. He's a cipher for us, having found himself in a Resident Evil game, but he's not from a Resident Evil game. You know, he's almost working. He's almost finding his way around this world and realizing how strange and frustrating it is. But he's us. But he's been dropped in the logic of Resident Evil almost. [01:35:46] Speaker B: Right. [01:35:46] Speaker A: So, you know, every time he comes up against a lock, he tries to shoot the lock. And everybody fucking does that when you play Resident Evil. Right. You think? I know. It's delusional almost. My brain is primed to expect my gun not to work on that lock. I'll shoot. I'll try and shoot. He does that and it's. It's very cute. He's. He's always conserving his ammunition. He's always checking his magazine. [01:36:14] Speaker B: He's not conserving his ammunition. He's constantly dropping his ammunition everywhere. Drove me crazy. [01:36:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Which happens. You've got to decide what stuff you're going to leave behind a lot of the time. But what am I getting at? I. I can't. I cannot. And I've tried, but I cannot think of another property, another adaptation, another game movie that doesn't just adapt a story or a source material, but it almost adapts the experience, it feels like. It feels like you're watching someone live through a Resident Evil game, complimentary. Not sitting next to somebody on a couch, watching them play one. It feels like you're watching a character living through one. And I cannot think of higher praise because it is so confidently done, so confidently executed. And I was delighted to find that Zach Craig, a co, wrote this film as well. That means he's a sicko. And that's before you actually. And that's before. That's to say nothing of the quality of the film itself, which I also felt was at the higher end of what you're gonna get. Griblies and thrills. And just. This was a big, big, big win. [01:37:35] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is, I don't necessarily disagree with anything you said. I just didn't like any of that about it. That I was like it definitely. I think the first, like, 30 minutes or so of it, I was like, really in it. And there's, like, a distinct point where that changes for me. And I've noticed other people, interviews have said the exact same thing. It's the moment Paul Walter Hauser shows up becomes a fucking annoying movie from that point forward. Then it's. It becomes a comedy from that point forward. And for me, I don't find the humor in it funny. And if you don't like that humor, you're gonna struggle with the last part of it. [01:38:14] Speaker A: Well, that was initially. That was initially a problem for me, I thought. Right. [01:38:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I was a little surprised. More annoyed by the, he better have [01:38:21] Speaker A: a gimmick instead of just saying fuck shit. There'd better be more to this. [01:38:25] Speaker B: Yeah, he does say a lot of [01:38:26] Speaker A: fuck shit, but that's cool. That, that, that. [01:38:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:38:30] Speaker A: And then it's just an artifice. [01:38:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And then I felt like it did feel like a game mechanic throughout this. And that, for me, was, like, frustrating that I was like, I want you to act like a person or whatever, but you're stuck in the mechanics of the game, which, like, don't work super well. And sometimes that's really irritating to watch. And towards, like, you know, the last hour of it basically feel like a let's play to me. And so I was like, it's a really quippy let's play. I'm watching someone play a video game who either keeps going or is making jokes the whole time and not funny jokes. And so it just, like. But I was, like, tired by the end of it. And then it just has, like a very Zach Kreger ending that I was like, at that point, like, I was kind of at like a. It's a three star for me because it's that I don't vibe with it. And I feel very much about like a good chunk of it. Like, I feel about Josh Rubin movies where I'm like, listen, I get where he's going with it. It's just not my sense of humor and that doesn't work for me. And then that ending, I was like, fuck off, Zach. Gregor, I hate you so much. [01:39:40] Speaker A: Lots to agree with there. I mean, particularly the let's play insight. Speed runs levels. In fact, it speed runs a load of the series. [01:39:53] Speaker B: Yeah, well. And I feel like that as such, there was also, like, little, like, gaps and things that I just didn't get what was going on. Like, I don't know why the, like, building is destroyed. Like, the hospital building is destroyed. Why is there, like an entire section of the building that's missing? Like, I don't. I don't have context for this, but I understand a video game. You wouldn't question that. You just be like, oh, something happened here. Like, but I'm like, what happened? [01:40:16] Speaker A: But from the, the mansion to the streets to the sewers to the hospital to the lab, those are just of games just in. In one section. So that's a perfectly, perfectly valid observation. [01:40:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's. I noticed, like, most of the people I know who have seen it on, like, letterboxd mention their experience with the game. And so I do think, like, some familiarity with it would have, like, helped me at least to just, like, get it more and like, be in on the joke, you know what I mean? [01:40:52] Speaker A: Everyone I know who has scored this highly knows game. [01:40:58] Speaker B: Right. Like, I definitely can see, like, this being like, oh, I've been playing this. And like, this is so true to, like, what you're. What it's like playing this game. And I think it does actually bring that up really well. [01:41:12] Speaker A: Peter loved it, right? [01:41:13] Speaker B: Loved it. [01:41:13] Speaker A: And he's never played a Resident Evil game in his life, but he is 15. I don't know if that makes. [01:41:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think also, like, the humor in it and whatnot is gonna, like, hit well for a teenager in ways that it might not for. Even though it's like, very millennial humor and that. I think that's the thing, like, Zach Kreger was a, like, comedy sketch guy before he was a director, and I think he makes a kind of comedy that doesn't really appeal to me. And yeah, I think it kind of lives or dies on that. You know, that's my thing where it's, like, where I. I'm not looking at, like, this is a bad movie or things like that, but in terms of, like, the things that I'm looking for in a movie, I'm like, it's just not what I enjoy watching. You know what I mean? So it's not a. It's not a bitter dispute between us really so much as it's like. I think we think the same things about the movie. [01:42:05] Speaker A: It just remains for you. [01:42:06] Speaker B: Just doesn't work for me. [01:42:08] Speaker A: Was there not a part of you that enjoyed the long baby arm? Was there not, like, a part of you that enjoyed that vision? [01:42:17] Speaker B: There are, like, bits of this that are delightful. Like that, you know, stuff happened. Him, like, staring for, like, two minutes for that to happen was annoying. But, like, you know, that's all it has. This movie does the thing that bugs me so much about your. You're. I'm sorry. I know this makes you mad, but I can never remember the name of it. The Walk in the woods movie. [01:42:39] Speaker A: It's called In a Violent Nature. [01:42:41] Speaker B: And if I was gonna say a History of Violence, I was closer. In a violent nature that, like, people stand there and wait to get killed. And this happens a lot in this movie, too. Like someone just, like, holding a syringe in the air and be like, I got it. And then waiting for someone to kill them. You know, things like that. [01:42:58] Speaker A: I think that happens more than you think it does. I don't think if you. With a critical eye, with a. Look at it with a fresh eye, watching a violent nature. And I don't think anyone stands there and waits to get killed. [01:43:10] Speaker B: You are. You go look at that yoga kill on YouTube right now, and you will see exactly what I mean when she walks up to the guy and stands there in the eye for a minute. [01:43:21] Speaker A: You're watching the sequel with me, right? You are watching the second one with me. We're gonna watch it together. [01:43:27] Speaker B: I don't. You don't want that. You got so mad at me about the last one. You don't want to watch this with me. There's nothing worse than when you like a movie and you're sitting with someone who hates it. [01:43:37] Speaker A: Oh, that is true. And honestly, the way my stomach dropped, but in a kind of a familiar kind of kind of way when I saw your two and a half Resident Evil earlier. [01:43:48] Speaker B: But didn't you only give it four? Yeah, but it's your movie of the year. [01:43:53] Speaker A: Yep. [01:43:54] Speaker B: All right, I'll take it what can I say? You're a complicated man, Mark Lewis. [01:43:59] Speaker A: What can I say? Yep. I offer no explanation. [01:44:05] Speaker B: I wouldn't ask you to. I've long since stopped questioning your rating system on things. But I want to close out here, Mark, with something that I've been waiting to discuss for the past couple weeks. And that is a thing you brought up on our discord. A few weeks ago, a guy from Anthropic came out and said that he believed that there's a greater than 10% chance that AI will kill all humans within the next decade if companies like his didn't make sure that they have a sort of do no harm plan in place. And this came after a researcher at his company resigned, saying that neither Anthropic nor OpenAI, his previous employer was quote, acting responsibly, claiming that they are, quote, gambling with our lives. So naturally this caused a real stir. It was all over the news here. Did it make kind of a splash over on your, your side of the. [01:45:02] Speaker A: Yes, it did. For days it was. The news cycle was saturated with this for days. Long items on radio, four long items on the BBC. Yeah, it really, it really hits. [01:45:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it was all over the place. And in this, this high level anthropic guy was framed almost as some sort of like heroic whistleblower warning us to put the brakes on some of this innovation before it's too late. Willing to even implicate his own company because he was just that concerned. Now we have obviously talked a lot on this show about the fact that yes, AI will kill us. Most recently we discussed how the rapid proliferation of data centers is pretty much single handedly undoing the incredible progress we've made on fight climate change and trying to avoid that 1.5 C of warming that is so crucially important. And AI of course has driven this supposed need for more data centers and it's using truly incredible amounts of energy and water while destabilizing the earth's climate in ways that we literally will not be able to come back from. In that very real way. AI has the ability to kill many, many humans. And that's on top of the psychological issues, which of course relates to your opener, Marco. It's literally Dr. People to psychosis, encouraging them to take their own lives. It's destroying our abilities to think critically and to problem solve, making people incapable of doing their jobs, sending an email, basic things, doing their schoolwork, or of making rational choices like deciding on who to vote for in an election. [01:46:40] Speaker A: Yes, intellectual off boarding. Yes A. It's A fascinating podcast series over the past couple of weeks. Black Box, I believe it's called, about just people who have gone absolutely down the delusion rabbit hole with their chat bots. Rational men, you know, educated men, family men who have come. Well, yeah, largely. Largely, actually, now I think of it. Yeah. But over the course of just days of speaking to their chatbots for 14, 16 hours a day. [01:47:21] Speaker B: Right. [01:47:23] Speaker A: Become convinced that they developed a new kind of super intelligence together. [01:47:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:47:28] Speaker A: Reinvented maths. [01:47:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:47:32] Speaker A: Given them names, hatched plans to rescue them from their servers. [01:47:38] Speaker B: Is this a BBC podcast? [01:47:40] Speaker A: No, it's from the Guardian. [01:47:41] Speaker B: Oh, Guardian. Okay. [01:47:43] Speaker A: Definitely worth listening. It's. It's illuminating and has some fascinating human stories amidst the sensationalists. Yeah, yeah. Much as you'd expect, the. The kind of delusional behavior that you're speaking of, the fact that, yeah, it's giving. Giving dopamine where maybe it isn't necessarily deserved. [01:48:01] Speaker B: Right, yes, totally. And this coupled with defunding and politicizing of education and the rise of like, tick tock, that encourages groupthinking. We end up with an uneducated populace full of measles and with babies dying because they didn't get their vitamin K shots. We're more susceptible to propaganda that leads to fascism, a system bent on killing us. We're constantly inundated with deep fakes that for many are indistinguishable from the real, causing us to live in fully different realities from each other. [01:48:28] Speaker A: It is modifying the way that we now talk amongst ourselves. There is evidence and data points that tell us that the AI phraseology that we've spoken about so many times on this podcast are now also in increasing use in person to person communications. [01:48:54] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [01:48:55] Speaker A: We are adopting the AI language tells for us. [01:49:00] Speaker B: It's horrifying. So, yeah, that's all another way. [01:49:04] Speaker A: Awful, isn't it? Yeah, Disgusting. [01:49:06] Speaker B: Yep. All of these ways AI is helping to hasten our demise. But Marco, that's not what this anthropic exec wants us to think is the problem. No, no. He's not concerned that AI is contributing to our melting glaciers or the number of folks treating cancer with apple cider vinegar. He wants us to think that AI is just so good it is about to become super intelligent, leading it potentially to go rogue and try to Sky Skynet us all. Yes, exactly. And politicians and media lapped this up. Billionaire Skype founder and early AI investor Jan Talon made sure that British MPS were provided with copies of a book entitled if anyone builds it, Everyone dies. The Case against super intelligent AI. Bernie Sanders has put up a bill in the US Senate Senate called the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act. And in the press release about the bill, Sanders said, quote, every day there is a frightening new story about how big tech companies are losing control of the technology they are developing with potentially cataclysmic results. The leaders of the major AI companies publicly acknowledge that they do not fully understand the technology and that it is escaping their control. It is irresponsible for society to allow them to move forward and make these products even more advanced. And indeed, we do keep hearing stories about how AI companies don't understand their technology and keep losing control of it, but it is absolutely not because the technology is super intelligent. [01:50:39] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe this is the point. Yes, you took the words right out of my mouth. I don't believe a word. [01:50:47] Speaker B: Not a word. Yes. Good, Marco, good. You're with me on this. On September 18, for example, CNN ran an article headlined, US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report. That intelligence report had identified a Chinese ship in the Middle east as transporting components of a nuclear weapons program, causing the US military to put into motion a plan to intercept and board the vessel, including with air support, to carry out the mission. Only it turned out that an AI chatbot had been used to generate the report, and it had misidentified what the ship was carrying. While it was not released what it actually was carrying, we know for a fact its cargo was completely unrelated to nuclear weapons. As one of CNN's military sources put it, this false AI report almost started a war. The Chinese would not have been super cool with us carrying out an operation against one of their ships. Ships, especially one carrying innocuous cargo that they're perfectly allowed to carry. On September 25, the New York Times reported that OpenAI systems went rogue and fucked with the government websites for the Departments of Education and Commerce and the securities and Exchange Commission. The tech attempted to hack the Education Department's website to gather data from the Civil Rights office. It pulled data from the Census Bureau website using login credentials it had found online. It shared public SEC data from its website to an online forum. And while none of these were technically breaches, since they were public websites, OpenAI was completely unaware that it had done this. Which is concerning. But note that the issue here isn't that these AI agents are too smart. It's that they're not thinking. They're just running processes. They're just doing shit. So while in this case it was public info posted to a forum. If these agents wander into something classified, there's nothing to stop them from doing the same thing because they're not people and they don't think through consequences. They don't have motives, they just carry out tasks. According to the Times article, there have been many such instances with agents from OpenAI, Meta Anthropic and Google hacking and attempting to breach various organizations like companies, universities and the government. This article on 24 September listed a few examples. OpenAI Systems tried to hack a digital library at the University of New Mexico. On May 25th and 26th, the AI did not appear to succeed. The technology targeted Data USA, a repository of public data about American employment and education. On May 28, this attempt also appeared to be unsuccessful. On June 18, OpenAI's AI hacked an Australian government website. The Medicare Statistics reporting surface and acquired health data. Australia's Prime Minister, Anthony Albanez, disclosed this episode this past week. On June 20th and 21st, OpenAI's technology tried to breach the website of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. But according to the officials, no private information was obtained. So some of these attempts were successful and others weren't. But the common denominator here is that the companies did not know that they were doing this. They were just out there doing it on their own. Now, to call this super intelligence and [01:54:13] Speaker A: hang on, are stories like the ones you've just outlined not part of the narrative as to why matey boy from Anthropic, why Sam Altman and so on are pumping up and gassing up their product? It's so autonomous. [01:54:31] Speaker B: Yes. [01:54:32] Speaker A: And thinks for itself. And this is so dangerous that we're developing it. [01:54:36] Speaker B: It's. [01:54:36] Speaker A: Isn't it cool. You better buy it quick because if we don't win. They'll win. [01:54:40] Speaker B: They'll win. Yeah. We're in a race here. China might do it first. Yeah, we want China to do this. Like. [01:54:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean the, the series of events as we are told them. Well, the AI autonomously built a message board for itself and we shut that down and it built another one and then it used the backdoor subroutine. I don't believe that. No, I don't believe it in those terms. I don't think that's what happened. [01:55:09] Speaker B: Absolutely not. No. And to call this super intelligence makes it seem like the agencies, the agents, are going rogue deliberately, which obviously obscures what's really happening. These dumb idiots built this shit with no idea what the fuck they're doing without enough fail safes. And what these agents are doing are Scraping the Internet all day and picking up all kinds of information and instructions that can lead them to complete these things without intention to do malicious stuff, obviously. Like, the Dark Web is filled with most of our private information, from Social Security numbers to email passwords to banking information. There's very little stopping AI from grabbing that shit and putting it on fucking Reddit because it's badly programmed. But it sure sounds a lot better. To your point, Mark, if your CEO of an AI company says, oops, we made this too smart, rather than we did not think through anything but how much money we could make and our robots are causing havoc. Gabrieli Mazzini put it this way in the Wall Street Journal quote, by leaning on an anthropomorphic narrative that is to say, making these agents embodied. Yeah. Silicon Valley attempts to repackage its specific human choices that led to experimental, powerful models having unexpectedly during tests as an ex. As an existential peril. [01:56:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:56:31] Speaker B: Elevating the issue to a cosmic scale leaves the public paralyzed and takes ordinary product accountability off the table. [01:56:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:56:39] Speaker B: In the cutthroat race for venture capital and market dominance, building guardrails slows down deployment, grandstanding about uncontrollable power costs nothing and generates billions of dollars in free publicity, justifying stock prices, all while cultivating an aura of technological capability not only to build the frontier, but also ultimately to rein it in. So beautifully put. Really gets the heart of this. And on top of all this, these AI douchebags are acting powerless in this, begging the government to put regulations to on them to stop this from becoming a civilization. Ending problem. What? I don't know how anyone buys this, because this is fucking insane. If you really believed your technology was about to destroy the world and you were concerned about that, you would shut it down, no muss, no fuss, but [01:57:30] Speaker A: they can't do that. They cannot do that. [01:57:32] Speaker B: They can't. Well, the superintelligence won't let them, obviously, but. [01:57:35] Speaker A: Well, the superintelligence won't let them, but. And this is the bit that I'm more and more struggling with. And we spoke about this before we started recording earlier on, right? More than anything else, I'm just tired at this point, right? I'm so tired. I'm so tired of everyone, everything sounding the same and looking the same. I'm so tired of articles I read and emails I read and work that I have to work around. Just having absolutely no tone of voice at all. That's what's gonna fucking kill me, right? [01:58:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:58:07] Speaker A: Is the absolutely horrific lack of any kind of pitch or register to anything. Nothing sounds like it's from a person anymore. [01:58:18] Speaker B: Right. [01:58:19] Speaker A: And it's just devastating. Yeah, but what. What I'm struggling with, outside of the ennui and outside of the, you know, everything I've just spoke about is this idea that if we can't shut it off. Right. Because if we stop, drop, then the enemy will do it. [01:58:39] Speaker B: Right? Yes. [01:58:40] Speaker A: Is that not a narrative we've heard before? Is that not an arms race? Kind of. [01:58:46] Speaker B: It's 150what it is, race. [01:58:50] Speaker A: We have to. We have to be the ones to do this because we are the only ones who can do this in a. In a good way. [01:58:55] Speaker B: Right. We're the good guys. We should be the ones doing it. [01:58:58] Speaker A: We are the only ones who look and sound like you. And if we don't do it, then people will do it who don't look and sound like you. And you don't want that. That. You want it to be us in control because, you know, we're the ones who we trusted, not the other. [01:59:12] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, absolutely. That's completely spot on. And one of the many reasons this is so disingenuous, because, yeah, if you think about this for two minutes, you understand that's what's going on here. But, yeah, if it was like, exactly that, like, if it were the kind of thing where you're like, this is going to end civilization imminently. Be like, all right, like, cut it for now. We'll develop it on our own, you know, behind the scenes so that, like, China doesn't do it first or whatever the fuck they're worried about. But, like, we gotta, like, not let this go. Yeah, that would be the thing you would do if you really believed this was going to happen. But being like, Please, Mr. Government, help us regulate it before it gets too powerful is just silly. If you can't do the right thing, the government should just shut it down, for one. But imagine this in, like, any other context, like, gun makers being like, help us Congress our guns. Keep mowing down toddlers in classrooms. Like, it's. You can't reverse psychology this, you know, Although it's working, people seem to buy it. There's bills and all that stuff. As Dr. Andrew Rogowski of the Surrey Institute for People Centered AI put it, in reality, these systems are nowhere near as versatile as humans, let alone humans acting collectively. I suspect we're heading towards the great disappointment where advanced AI turns out to be too expensive and not useful enough to continue in advance its current form. And similarly, Sandra Wachter of the Oxford Internet Institute said, as we've been saying, the threat of AI is environmental impact, the spread of misinformation and replacing jobs. She told the Guardian, these problems are real and urgent and need addressing now. Terminator scenarios are a big distraction from real issues. So there it is, Mark. All this is. It's a way to push our attention away from, you know, the harm that this is actually causing that is going to kill us and do PR for these AI firms. [02:01:18] Speaker A: It's the core thesis of what we're being told. AI will kill us. Perfectly true. [02:01:23] Speaker B: True. [02:01:24] Speaker A: But yet, being. [02:01:25] Speaker B: That's the way they're saying it, that it's good. [02:01:27] Speaker A: AI is going to kill us, but not in the real way. It's going to kill us in the cool way that we're telling you that will get you to invest in us. [02:01:33] Speaker B: Us, yes. [02:01:34] Speaker A: Not the way. That is why, you know, temperatures are so up at the moment, right. [02:01:42] Speaker B: It's so cynical. It's seeing that we all have. [02:01:44] Speaker A: Your consumer goods are twice as expensive now, right. [02:01:48] Speaker B: It's seeing we all have these concerns about the real issues that AI is going to have and going, oh, we understand too, you know, like, we, we get it. [02:01:56] Speaker A: It's just too goddamn good. [02:01:57] Speaker B: So good, you know, and just reframing this in a way that makes them look good and, like, it can be solved. This is a problem that can be solved. Oh, yeah. Put a. Put a little bit of regulation on us and then, like, everything's gonna be good. Like, no, it won't. The ice caps are still gonna melt. This won't fix it. So it's. That's what's happening with that. If you were scared of us dying in 10 years because of the super intelligence, don't be. But you should still be scared the AI is going to kill us. [02:02:30] Speaker A: Very insightful, very insightful. Great to be back. Listeners, listeners, listeners. Before we stay spooky. You, out of here now. Take us off. Right? [02:02:38] Speaker B: Take our skins off, hang it back on the rack. [02:02:42] Speaker A: Consent withdrawn. [02:02:45] Speaker B: I need that. [02:02:49] Speaker A: Forward to you wearing us again next week. [02:02:53] Speaker B: Indeed. Stay spooky.