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NET Society is unraveling the latest in digital art, crypto, AI, and tech. Join us for fresh insights and bold perspectives as we tap into wild, thought-provoking conversations. By: Derek Edwards (glitch marfa / collab+currency), Chris Furlong (starholder, LAO + Flamingo DAO), and Aaaron Wright & Priyanka Desai (Tribute Labs)
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;15;28
Aaron
Yo
00;00;16;01 - 00;00;16;21
Aaron
Hey, guys.
00;00;16;24 - 00;00;19;00
Chris
Another week. Another DAT.
00;00;19;02 - 00;00;41;15
Aaron
Yeah, the dads are back. But this time around, Zcash, it looks like, I thought pretty, you know, you had a really great point about this, earlier this week just about how the early folks that were more cypherpunks were super into Bitcoin that ecosystem's maturing. And maybe they're, they're moving some of their, their capital and also just their interest into Zcash.
00;00;41;17 - 00;00;43;05
Aaron
But maybe I should unpack that.
00;00;43;07 - 00;00;58;10
Pri
Yeah I mean I it's funny we talked about it on the Monday night call. And I know like did a tweet thread on it. And then this Zcash thing was announced. I was like oh that's that's crazy because I mean the Winklevoss for you know they are OGs in many ways. So it's like the fact that they're moving in that direction.
00;00;58;10 - 00;01;22;28
Pri
I saw Balaji do a tweet. He's like the you know, he he had some he had like three buckets. He's like phase one was digital gold. Phase two was programmability, phase three is privacy. And so it makes you think like the these people that are on the bleeding edge are starting to really think about privacy as a core philosophy, which is one a core philosophy of like cypherpunks in general.
00;01;22;28 - 00;01;53;14
Pri
And so just thinking about how like, Bitcoin is basically have been institutionalized or like institutional commodities at this point, it's not interesting. I think we all feel it too, like most retail people are not interested because it's just become fully fintech. And so I think the cypherpunks people at the edge are starting to think again about privacy and so Zcash has obviously felt energy in the markets, but has just become more of a talking point for a lot of people.
00;01;53;16 - 00;02;15;16
Pri
I think I even saw a tweet about Nevel talking about Nevada. I think Arthur Hayes was on CNBC saying that Nevel had dinner with him and said that Zcash is the last place in crypto that you could have a 1000 X return. Again, like, who knows how real any of this is, but like, there's clearly something in the the waters with like the cryptographer crowd.
00;02;15;18 - 00;02;32;26
Pri
And I think just people see it as like a core principle, similar to what they saw as Bitcoin, to what happened with the financial system in 2008. So, yeah, I wonder if that's sort of driving. It is like the cyber punks rotating money into philosophy. If they believe in.
00;02;32;28 - 00;02;50;12
Aaron
I think it could be that. I also think you know, could just be a sign of a maturing economy. You know, way back in the day, I was at some dinner with somebody, that worked at the fed, and he just noted that, you know, most economies have like, you know, kind of a traditional like, above board economy.
00;02;50;12 - 00;03;07;21
Aaron
And then there's always kind of like, like a gray market. And lots of folks look at the gray market and think it's all bad. But like most things, it's a little bit more complicated than that. And obviously gray markets can do a lot of bad things, but they're also just kind of a necessary evil of like a well-functioning economy.
00;03;07;23 - 00;03;26;29
Aaron
And so I wonder just because as the ecosystem has grown, maybe there is kind of a lane, you know, for something like this. So I think that could be one factor. I, I could also just think it could be not even folks that are super geeked on Cypherpunks, but are just viewing it as like a hedge on the global rise of censorship.
00;03;27;04 - 00;03;49;18
Aaron
Yeah. So in the States, we've we've had kind of a pact track record related to that over the past couple of years on both sides of the aisle. But I think in other jurisdictions, where we where we are and there's a little bit more of that, and maybe folks are getting increasingly concerned about that, and they're kind of voting with their, their dollars or their Bitcoin or their other digital assets, that that's going to become a bigger and bigger issue.
00;03;49;26 - 00;03;57;14
Aaron
So maybe that's a piece of it. Or maybe it is just like this. The Cypherpunks are really in control. We're increasingly going to be in control.
00;03;57;16 - 00;04;24;05
Chris
Okay, that that's an a rosy view of the world, Mr. Glass. Half full, the glass half empty view. The world is this was a coordinated insider pump involving like, people who had information at the WinCo, like we're putting it that together and trading alongside of it and building this whole narrative. And once again, when the lights get turned on, it's really just naked profiteering.
00;04;24;08 - 00;04;35;11
Chris
You know, Arthur Hays navel, the wink of eye CNBC kick the photographer out of that group. There is none. I don't know, man.
00;04;35;13 - 00;04;41;07
Aaron
It's I'm going to blame this on on Jim Cramer. You're right. This is all Jim Cramer.
00;04;41;09 - 00;04;48;12
Pri
I don't think they're cryptographers but they tend to be close to or early to these crypto these Trump.
00;04;48;13 - 00;04;49;14
Aaron
Communities. Yeah.
00;04;49;17 - 00;05;04;16
Pri
Yeah. Like I mean they're aligned with them I think ideologically like I again I don't know these people at this time. You like my read but I don't see them as I mean obviously these are profit driven individuals. But I do think they like, see profit and at the edge.
00;05;04;16 - 00;05;36;17
Aaron
And I'm sure that for some that there's some profit motive like that's always floating around, you know, but at the same time and I think it gets like lost in, in, tweets and headlines and day by day blows. But, you know, if you look at the digital asset ecosystem, it is more surveilled than the traditional asset system in the sense that there's, you know, state of the art analytic and, you know, data processing services that are churning through blockchains, looking through transactions, able to kind of make connections that you wouldn't necessarily be able to make.
00;05;37;12 - 00;05;58;05
Aaron
In other ecosystems in the long run. I do think the digital asset markets will be quote unquote cleaner than, traditional asset markets. I don't think that they're there yet. But I do think, you know, there is going to be increased demand for privacy. You know, if you enter into commercial transactions as a reason to make those contract contracts private, right?
00;05;58;05 - 00;06;14;22
Aaron
You don't just, like, publish them all, you know, to some central registry or in the public, because that's a productive way to do something, I don't know. I'm going to take that glass. That glass. Half full. It looks good to me, Chris, on this one.
00;06;14;24 - 00;06;41;02
Chris
All right, I want you to go out and do a, a cryptographer on the street interview, like NewsCenter five style. And if I can find a group of Cypherpunks and ask them how aligned they feel with the Winklevoss, I, issuing a dat literally called Cypherpunk. That is a Wall Street trading vehicle and, you know, see, see their their thoughts on how, aligned that is with the core values of what they are all about.
00;06;41;04 - 00;06;43;24
Aaron
Yeah, I think that's fair. That's a fair critique.
00;06;43;26 - 00;06;44;09
Pri
Do you think.
00;06;44;15 - 00;06;45;19
Aaron
A fair critique,
00;06;45;21 - 00;07;07;03
Pri
Like, speaking of what is all this trading because of the debt? Because that's not that they got to be like diminishing, but it's not that big to justify this big of a pump around Zcash. So like I can't tell if the Zcash dad got thrown together after Zcash formed or if it was like the reason it did pop, you know.
00;07;07;05 - 00;07;25;19
Chris
They were there. Their average accumulation price is 235 bucks. And so they were clearly doing this ahead of and maybe early innings. You know the bulk of their work I Zcash is is it still over 600 or is it.
00;07;25;21 - 00;07;28;11
Pri
It's like 570. Are you sure.
00;07;28;13 - 00;07;49;19
Chris
Yeah. So I don't know I to me this is like someone lit a match and other people saw it. It was convenient to serve gasoline on it for fun and profit. And you know. Well we'll see. I mean, you know, time ultimately decides everything. But yeah, you this is from the lens of, look, everything in crypto is rotten.
00;07;49;22 - 00;08;10;05
Chris
And, you know, you give it enough time and the, the rotten reason for something doing. And I'm not saying like them making it dad was rotten. I'm just saying, like, you know, if you're Arthur Hayes and you know, there's a dad coming and you're out treating Zcash well I'm sorry man. Like, you know, you're you're basically just collecting cannon fodder.
00;08;10;08 - 00;08;14;10
Aaron
I do think it's also there's just not as much going on in this space. And so while.
00;08;14;11 - 00;08;15;27
Chris
There's nothing going on well.
00;08;15;27 - 00;08;45;05
Aaron
Like when it comes to kind of like the trenches, it does feel like the and this was kind of my view like increasingly on is just viewed in the same breath as like the Binance BNB and base as kind of like a faster transaction throughput, blockchain like ecosystem. So I it could just be that too, where people know that there's going to be an another emerging ecosystem and for the reasons kind of described like this is enough for them to feel like they want to support or be a part of it.
00;08;45;08 - 00;09;02;02
Chris
Yeah. I look I think everything's always a little of this, a little of that, you know, I mean, I don't think the Winklevoss or they're creating it that simply because, you know, they wanted Arthur to trade and then retail to follow and then nothing to happen. Right. That's you know, you don't go through that work for for that.
00;09;02;02 - 00;09;26;27
Chris
There's obviously a belief in it at the same time. Like I just look at this from the perspective of, oh, cool. There was, you know, positive momentum at the time where everything was sold out. And then, you know, it really at the end of the day, the catalyst is, is that, you know, we we could be, five years from now and, you know, everyone will be joking that like, dad stands for Dead Asset Trust, you know.
00;09;27;00 - 00;09;28;01
Chris
And so.
00;09;28;03 - 00;09;29;14
Pri
You just come up with a.
00;09;29;16 - 00;09;35;27
Chris
Yeah, it's good for me I did. Maybe I'm not as, groggy as I claim to be in the warm ups to the call.
00;09;35;29 - 00;09;38;14
Pri
Yeah. That was that's pretty good.
00;09;38;17 - 00;10;04;00
Aaron
You know, I think I think the dads will turn a little bit more into, like, operating vehicles, like, around these ecosystems. You know, I think Ethereum had, like, a whole ecosystem around it at the start, which I think was an advantage. You saw like Solana to their credit, like have like kind of anchor organizations, whether they were funds or other companies that were, you know, kind of building and pulling people into their ecosystem.
00;10;04;00 - 00;10;32;26
Aaron
So you could see something like this, like as the Zcash that, you know, being able to like, serve and build some of that cartilage that I think is necessary for like healthy community development. So again, that'd be the more optimistic take on some of this. And I do think just practically for the ecosystem to get to the next level, whatever that is, it is going to need something that's able to thread the needle on these very, very tricky privacy questions.
00;10;32;29 - 00;10;56;05
Aaron
I just think, you know, basic commerce kind of requires that an Intel or unless we're all completely comfortable with everything being open and transparent, I just I think there'll be some demand for that, you know, in growing demand for that over time. Do you guys, just kind of pivoting a little bit. Do you guys see that insane anthropic AI based cybersecurity attack?
00;10;56;07 - 00;10;58;05
Pri
That was crazy.
00;10;58;07 - 00;11;09;02
Aaron
Yeah, I thought that that was like, one of the wildest stories. I read in a while just thinking about, like, what does that mean to, like, have kind of like, you know, a genetic cyber warfare. Like what?
00;11;09;05 - 00;11;15;03
Pri
Like literally that. And so, like, are these companies now responsible for stopping it or are they working with like.
00;11;15;06 - 00;11;34;08
Aaron
I don't know, it's a good question. I mean, I guess they probably would want to write like nobody is going to want their service to be used for nefarious purposes, even if they, they can't like before the fact stop and prevent that from happening to me in my head when prey was more like at some point these things are going to be on our devices.
00;11;34;10 - 00;11;56;06
Aaron
And so like let's say your, your, your computer gets compromised or a bunch of computers get compromised and they're running like, you know, local LMS to like, effectuate all this, like, digital chaos. I feel like it's going to get messy pretty quickly because we're we're probably only a couple quarters away to you can run a pretty I mean, I think you can already but not nobody's doing it at scale yet.
00;11;56;06 - 00;11;59;14
Aaron
You know, some pretty high powered homes on on your local.
00;11;59;16 - 00;12;03;09
Chris
Yeah. Reason number 5000. I don't have a smart fridge.
00;12;03;12 - 00;12;10;28
Aaron
Yeah. When you're smart, fridge is literally like, like running, like, cyberattacks. And in some foreign.
00;12;10;28 - 00;12;34;08
Pri
Land, like, LED espionage videos, we recap what actually a topic tweeted. So if you're like me, I don't know if you saw that, Chris. But basically, like they said, they disrupted a highly sophisticated AI led espionage campaign. The attack targeted large tech companies, financial institutions, chemical manufacturing companies, a government agencies. We assess with high confidence that the threat actor was Chinese state sponsored group.
00;12;34;10 - 00;12;47;08
Pri
But yeah they were it was just that's crazy. But there's like a they're using like cloud code for some of the agents for it. And and it was it goes into it in the blog post. But I'll send it to you. It's like wild.
00;12;47;11 - 00;13;15;04
Chris
Yeah. Wild a little surprised. You know, we haven't had one of these before or it did like we have had had them before. And this is just the first one that, you know, actually got cotton and publicized. One of the worries here. Right. Like I remember this is something that surfaced, I don't know, maybe 5 or 6 years ago or at some point was, you know, when Russia was maybe it was a lot earlier, like during Crimea.
00;13;15;04 - 00;13;43;29
Chris
But, I mean, Russia was able to, like, disable Ukraine's electric grid, you know, fairly easily. And a lot of that infrastructure is just sitting on ancient hardware and is probably a very easy, attack vector. And so, you know, to me, like if you're a, if you're dealing in advanced technologies, you know, you kind of like this is part of the game, right?
00;13;43;29 - 00;14;06;00
Chris
You know, OpSec and protecting trade secrets. If you're the Sheboygan municipal water supply, you know, like we we don't really have that same level of extrication. But that that to me is like when it gets really scary, I don't know. Hopefully, hopefully Chinese state actors are just interested in stealing commercial secrets.
00;14;06;03 - 00;14;32;02
Aaron
Yeah, they're probably not though, right? They probably. I'm sure that's probably a piece of it, but I think they just want to know that they can inflict, you know, maximum pain if something bad happened. And I'm just assuming if, if, like those Chinese non-state actor groups have that capability than others do to they may not just be as, loud about it or as sophisticated related to it or, you know, or maybe they're more, sorry, more sophisticated.
00;14;32;11 - 00;14;40;00
Aaron
Yeah, maybe. And, and harder to detect. So the bots are going to take over. I think that's the headline.
00;14;40;02 - 00;14;42;03
Chris
I can't wait.
00;14;42;05 - 00;14;51;18
Pri
Cyber warfare now has, we've been having cyber warfare now for like, 20 years. It's just been leveled at least level like, yeah.
00;14;51;20 - 00;15;23;21
Chris
I didn't not even like cyber warfare a year of it. Doesn't think it's in peace anymore. It knows it's not in war, but it's in this gray middle zone where, you know, Russia is doing all sorts of running drones over airports, you know, cutting cables, you know, sabotaging rail links. Like, there's definitely like a, I don't know, projection of nuisance, you know, going on across Europe right now and everyone's pointing the finger at Russia over that.
00;15;23;22 - 00;15;26;14
Chris
Now, world's a little cranky at the moment.
00;15;26;16 - 00;15;43;21
Aaron
We're cranky, a little cranky at the least. You know it does give. Give me hope. I mean, and, Chris, you kind of flagged this for me. I thought it was super cool. This new project, Marble World. I thought that that was pretty magical. It's like that. Yeah. Maybe I'll just tee it up like it's this application.
00;15;43;23 - 00;15;45;13
Chris
Don't know much about labs.
00;15;45;15 - 00;15;46;17
Aaron
Oh, world labs. Sorry.
00;15;46;22 - 00;15;48;06
Chris
And the products? Marble?
00;15;48;15 - 00;16;01;10
Aaron
Yeah. And what's cool about it is you can take any image and it will render it almost instantaneously. You know, after a little bit of processing into, like, a three dimensional space, it's like wild. Absolutely wild.
00;16;01;12 - 00;16;28;04
Chris
Yes. It's an amazing product. And I'm glad, like spatial intelligence and AI is starting to come to market because I think it's going to be a huge unlock it. Also, like I had spent the prior week trying to figure out how to build splats, and it was the most painful process of my whole coding run. And I took a huge L on it because of the complexity of actually trying to use like the normal channels to do this.
00;16;28;07 - 00;16;52;24
Chris
And so to have like something come to market that just leapfrogs all of that and can actually achieve what I want and what I need for a stockholder like is fucking great. Like, yes. Yay technology. You know, in, I don't know, entirely like, is it still goddamn, it's still not legal to say it. I don't think I've ever said that word out loud before.
00;16;54;07 - 00;16;57;13
Chris
So often I see I can't do it.
00;16;57;15 - 00;17;00;11
Aaron
I finally slapped, I missed.
00;17;00;14 - 00;17;20;21
Chris
No, no, that's the problem is is like. I'm like, my head is just being filled with slop. Dismissed. And I'm actually going for the, the philosophical, the line of philosophy, which stinks. The whole world revolves around you. And that you might be the only person in the world. It's, It's like solipsism or something more.
00;17;20;21 - 00;17;23;22
Aaron
We'll give you a pass on that one. But I think we know what you're talking about.
00;17;23;25 - 00;17;39;01
Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now that we found, like, five minutes for Turing that I was going to say if I was having that worldview, I would I would boil it down to I had to do a week's worth of hard work, a failure for, the technology gods to come. Give me a give. Give me this gift.
00;17;39;07 - 00;17;56;10
Aaron
I think it's cool, though, because it just kind of points to, I think this, like, world building or a, like, early world building models. And just like what that world is going to look like. And it's pretty amazing, right? You could take a picture of your apartment and it will be able to infer and fill in the gaps and turn that into like a three dimensional space.
00;17;56;10 - 00;18;22;01
Aaron
So that's like a like a real simple use case. But you can imagine just, that speed getting better and better where it's getting generated, like on the fly. Right? So you'd give it like, kind of like a palette or like a basic direction of where to go. And then the entire world is getting, you know, constructed, you know, so maybe if you only showed a picture of one room or like an open landscape like it would, it would be able to kind of continue a little bit like a movie.
00;18;22;01 - 00;18;45;28
Aaron
Right? Like the, the rest of the, the scene, the rest of the world and that's like, I think this vision of a metaverse that, you know, it's been repeatedly like kind of, Pooh poohed and denigrated. But I do think that quarter after quarter, we keep on seeing like more and more steps towards that. But I think what's cool about this platform, it also with a click of a button, you could, I guess, make it VR compatible.
00;18;45;28 - 00;18;51;06
Aaron
So, just like a little sub trend sub thematic that I think, is going to grow over time.
00;18;51;09 - 00;19;13;28
Chris
Yeah, I'm, I'm very bullish on this. It's a great first step from them if you actually re the head of the company is Doctor Feifei Lee. She used to run like Stanford's AI. And if you read like, her communications around this and her starting the term multimodal appears frequently and throughout. And so like, to me, this is just a warm up.
00;19;13;28 - 00;19;23;07
Chris
And what they're after is that full suite of, like, integration beyond just rendering three dimensional space. It's very exciting stuff.
00;19;23;07 - 00;19;32;12
Aaron
So did she give an indication of where she thinks she's going to take it or, or or was it just kind of like they knew they could do it? And then we're kind of pressing the envelope there.
00;19;32;14 - 00;19;58;15
Chris
Yeah, I think it's more just like the viewpoint, right? It seems to be that they want to extend far beyond this, like the emphasis on on multimodality, you know, was was repeated throughout. And so, you know, to me that implies you're going to be able to I mean, you know, if you look at in world models, right, we have like real time video generation and we've got, some degree of like action performance.
00;19;59;01 - 00;20;20;12
Chris
You know, climbing this ladder. And so we're getting like further and further along because that that's part of it is like, you know, if you think about it, it's almost like you have maybe four layers, to get through and sort of this world model capability thing where one is rendering and that's where we're at right now.
00;20;20;25 - 00;20;55;25
Chris
The second is sensing, right, like being able to actually look at a scene and go, where is the base on the coffee table, right. And to, to be able to identify like objects in a scene. Then, you know, part of that, part of that, like sensing, you also get memory alongside of it. Or you should be building like sensing and memory at the same time so that, the location of the base on the table is, is not like real time object detection, but you actually have mapped the whole scene and then you need actions, right?
00;20;55;25 - 00;21;25;06
Chris
And so like once you kind of get all of those things put together, like construction, sensing memory and action, then you can really like go to town within these world models. And another one, that came out this week was the, Google DeepMind team announced that like their up semi to I think is the name of the model, but it's it's basically where they put agents in these environments and have them learn from them like that.
00;21;25;06 - 00;21;44;10
Chris
That's taking a big step forward as well. And that's another part of this package that, you know, it's one thing to like create an environment, but the environment itself like can't know the purpose of it. Right? Its job is simply to exist. And so you need to put actors in those environments, and those actors need to be able to do things.
00;21;44;10 - 00;21;49;23
Chris
And so yeah, like Google is like banging away on that as well.
00;21;49;25 - 00;22;04;29
Aaron
So it sounds like all the hours that we all played playing The Sims, the game is going to be useful. Is that what I'm hearing, Chris? Like, we'll just pretty much drop we'll create our world to drop our agents in and then, try to learn and control them.
00;22;05;01 - 00;22;07;26
Chris
Yeah. It's, welcome to hyper reality.
00;22;07;28 - 00;22;08;22
Pri
Yeah.
00;22;08;24 - 00;22;23;21
Chris
Right. Not as like this weird philosophical. We're living in a world of symbols and and yada yada, but, like, hyper reality as a, a virtual space, you know, in which we can build and develop and and do all sorts of fun stuff.
00;22;23;23 - 00;22;51;02
Aaron
Yeah. I think it's part of this like broader theme that like the, the UX for computers or for the internet, it just it feels like we're just edging ever closer to like a phase shift there where these environments that we, we spent a lot of time in our digital lives is just going to begin to, evolve, whether that's operating system, whether it's these like world building type applications, like, it just feels like like everything will kind of look like a simulation, like a video game.
00;22;51;11 - 00;22;51;18
Aaron
Pretty.
00;22;51;18 - 00;23;07;14
Pri
Quickly. I do wonder how quickly that comes together. We've been talking to that for a while, and I think the tech is finally there. But and it does feel like traditional social media and how we connecting online is decaying. So I'm like, how quickly are we like really in these worlds with each other or by ourselves? Like, I'm.
00;23;07;21 - 00;23;33;11
Aaron
I think it's still going to be a slog, but I think, you know, for that phase shift to happen, the quality has to be high enough. And it feels like like pieces that that quality are, are really coming pretty quickly. If that's the case. Like I, you know, if you can literally, you know, snap a picture of your home and then like hang out, you know, like what I like based avatars of, of like your friends.
00;23;33;11 - 00;23;51;11
Aaron
Like maybe there's some new way to interact, right? Like online, like stuff like that. I think we saw crude versions of that with some of the stuff meta put out or some of the, like, metaverse spaces that we saw in the crypto space. But I just think it's all like leveling up, but like not leveling up incrementally, just kind of exponentially.
00;23;51;13 - 00;24;15;29
Chris
Yeah. It's also like it's a resource allocation thing as well. You're like, what I'm messing around with right now is Laugh and Lens Labs and those are two projects who their job is to label three dimensional spaces like to solve that. The faces on the coffee table. What's the coordinate to the coffee table? What's the coordinates of the base?
00;24;16;01 - 00;24;36;15
Chris
The ability to do that exists, but it only sits in two repos. And so you can basically say, you know, there's 12 people in the world with a domain knowledge of how to do it, and they've done it and they push, you know, these these GitHub repo is out. But like no major lab has picked it up and commercialized it yet.
00;24;36;19 - 00;25;00;07
Chris
And you know, I expect like, look, if marble is, taking slack production and going, okay, well, it's cool that Nerf Studio exists, but you need to take, you know, 100 images around the scene, map distances and everything, and then throw it in our AR splatting engine to create this. Right. You know, like, they figure out how to do this a couple of years ago.
00;25;00;08 - 00;25;22;00
Chris
No, it was a team at UC Berkeley. You know, it took someone like LA and were labs to go. Okay, well, that's great in theory, but, like, no one's going to do that, you know what I mean? It's like, just too laborious, useful, ergo, like, we got to go and figure out a way to make this, like trivial, trivial and automated.
00;25;22;00 - 00;25;48;07
Chris
Right. So all these things, I think exist as academic exercises and proving points, but someone actually need to take it in turn, turn it into like applied AI, you know, like scaled, functional, like production methods. And so I feel like it's actually I already know all the pieces to make this possible. And what you're going to be able to do with it is wild.
00;25;48;07 - 00;26;08;11
Chris
I think it's going to take another like, you know, 2 to 5 years of like teams with the resources and the skill set and like the computing power to actually then start turning these into things the same way that we have, you know, Sooners than mid journeys. So like we'll get there. It's like how to do this is already known.
00;26;08;11 - 00;26;10;03
Chris
It's just someone has to do the work.
00;26;10;06 - 00;26;21;00
Pri
And people are when you set the world labs like I don't know if he's walking out like that's insane. Like that came from an image. It was like so high quality. The work is happening.
00;26;21;07 - 00;26;29;19
Chris
Yeah. I rendered the cover of my book up. I got a full room with it now. It's absolutely wild. Like, it looks great. Like I one shot of it, you know.
00;26;29;22 - 00;26;37;01
Pri
I'm going to try to, like, stick a picture of, like, a place I went on vacation or something and see if we can, like, recreate it. That'll be really cool. I'll do.
00;26;37;05 - 00;26;52;10
Aaron
That completely. Well, because you we mentioned it. I guess it is the error of the slapped miss too, right? We saw our friends at A16z move over to to be a what, six, seven? They said. And what what you guys think of that?
00;26;52;23 - 00;26;54;00
Chris
You know.
00;26;54;03 - 00;26;56;08
Aaron
I slapped a miss manifesto.
00;26;56;10 - 00;27;20;02
Chris
Yeah, I, I mean, and my hot take is Marc Andreessen needs a passion project. Is like being two online isn't cutting it for him. He needs, like, a private space program. He needs, you know, I don't know to, like, want to build, like, network states or something. Like, he's got to find some, like, big, rich, middle aged guy problem and like, log off for a bit.
00;27;20;04 - 00;27;21;02
Chris
That's my take.
00;27;21;08 - 00;27;41;03
Aaron
I don't know, I mean, it's weird, like, on the one hand, like it was probably like a little bit cringey. I'm sure some other folks thought it was grungy, but at the same time it is kind of directionally where things are going. Right? So maybe they're just leaning a little bit more into that again and kind of what's who's one of their core customers outside of their investors?
00;27;41;03 - 00;27;49;08
Aaron
It is the founders. And I wonder if that resonates with them. Where maybe they're hearing that that's the direction like the next generation kind of wants to build them.
00;27;49;10 - 00;28;13;07
Chris
Hey, look, I want to be the Steven Spielberg of Soft. And so I'm not I'm not out against slop here. But there is like there is everything is too ironic to like for a gag to attention seeking with the knowledge that that attention is entirely ephemeral and is not something you're actually going to capitalize on. And so to me, that's a zero sum game.
00;28;13;07 - 00;28;32;15
Chris
Like you're not going to get anywhere with this approach. I mean, what look at Y Combinator and chat ID that was another one that came out this week. Like, you know, you know, to me, if you're a serious person and you see these organizations embracing it, what that says to me is like, I'm done. I'm done with you, right?
00;28;32;15 - 00;28;56;07
Chris
Like, you know, I'm never going to take you seriously again. You've chosen this moment in time to late to abandon, you know, any, any sort of values or any sort of like, whatever and just lean into the moment which which basically says to me like, you're not a reliable counterparty. And so, you know, I look, I think we're on the brink of recession.
00;28;56;07 - 00;29;17;29
Chris
I think we're going to go through like a couple more a couple of years, just absolute shit. Like, I think we're just trapped in this, you know, cycle where Republicans come into office, get all rah rah loose and shit, the economy crashes, and then Democrats have to come and like, nanny state everyone and piss us all off to rebuild everything.
00;29;18;02 - 00;29;50;24
Chris
And then we all react against that. And Republicans come in like, you know, it's just like, oh my God, this shit sucks. But here we are back in that cycle again. And so anyway, like, I think the next couple of years are going to be pretty lean. I think that like we have the conditions floating around for both a.com style crash in terms of, in terms of like CapEx over investment in, you know, technology that's going to take, you know, 20 years to mature and become part of everyday life.
00;29;51;12 - 00;30;08;22
Chris
And so we've got like that going on. We also, I think on and Wall Street and like around private credit and you know, like I think we've got like a global, a global financial crisis type setup happening over there. Like we could have both of those at the same time coming around the corner. I don't I don't want to bother anyone else.
00;30;08;25 - 00;30;29;22
Chris
Oh, but like I don't like what I see. Yeah. And and like so all of this to me is going to look extremely laughable and overly cringe and like, you're going to get made fun of really bad for what you're doing. Like right before the music stops. I mean, I'm sorry to get all doom on you. Yeah, that's all right.
00;30;29;22 - 00;30;32;25
Chris
That's how I'm looking at, like, some of this is just like.
00;30;32;28 - 00;30;33;16
Aaron
Yeah, feels.
00;30;33;16 - 00;30;42;25
Chris
Like you injuries. And you're like, sucking in, like, making fun of the Pope with memes, like, seconds before, you know, everything's going to go to shit. Well, they're going to play well for you.
00;30;42;27 - 00;30;43;23
Pri
Yeah.
00;30;43;25 - 00;30;58;29
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, it does feel like a little like this is the type of stuff you see in froth. I know a lot of people are worried about froth, especially on the AI side. I don't know, I've been kind of debating in my head whether or not, you know, like we start to see, like a little bit of softness there.
00;30;58;29 - 00;31;20;02
Aaron
And then at the same time there's just, you know, kind of, a little bit more interest and effort in, in crypto. And maybe that's just kind of like the more resilient tech sector that we have. There's like some dynamic between the two. But it it's it's a good point to, to note that, you know, some of this stuff may feel like a little bit, a little frothy.
00;31;20;05 - 00;31;27;15
Pri
Chris cooked. We're used to then, you know, like, you know, narratives that, like, last, when you look back, you know, like, that was like soda.
00;31;27;17 - 00;31;40;21
Chris
Bro. Oh. All right, let's let's play a game. Crypto don't dream. It's over or this is the end. I, I'm getting a lot of feelings that people are looking for. Blow off in December and and that's it.
00;31;40;27 - 00;31;41;26
Pri
Oh, you think it's over?
00;31;42;03 - 00;31;59;08
Chris
I think it's already done. I think it's been done for a while and no one's realized it. But could we have one last rally? Sure. But, like, you know me, I've been, like, doom and gloom about this for a while now. I'd like not to see it happen. I'm not rooting for by any means. I just, you know, I live in the world as it is, so I just think it's over.
00;31;59;10 - 00;32;24;10
Pri
I just don't see how that's possible. When we have, like, market structure rules, potentially tokenizing every single asset in the world, everyone having a stable coin over the next couple of years, like I. So I understand like that vibe you feel now, but that little like the need for authentication and stuff with the rise of AI. Like I just don't see how crypto doesn't have going for him.
00;32;24;10 - 00;32;35;23
Pri
I maybe I'm just super biased like want to do, but do you feel like there's like a lot of that hasn't even had the chance to like basically live because of although legal and regulatory issues.
00;32;35;25 - 00;32;55;20
Aaron
It just to tell two cities I think the composition of the the ecosystem is changing and if you, you know, go into the land of stablecoins, you go into the land of, you know, tokenized securities. You go into just thinking about like Bitcoin or ETH as a non sovereign, you know, store of value. I think that that's getting a lot of people excited.
00;32;55;26 - 00;33;15;22
Aaron
But I think in terms of, you know, new products and new services, kind of the trenches, it's just a different story. You know, I think a lot of folks are, you know, believe this like four year cycle thesis. And so maybe they're positioning themselves just accordingly. But the wild card is really, you know, the composition of the market's just different.
00;33;15;24 - 00;33;34;11
Aaron
And so maybe that maybe that holds maybe that doesn't. It's prior to you know, we'll only know in a couple years when we look back. But I don't know it just like I just see like really strong fundamentals like a kind of across the board, you know, you look at circle's numbers, they blew past their earnings. Coinbase I think did the same.
00;33;34;13 - 00;33;57;25
Aaron
You know you've got a bunch of, projects that want to go public. They're getting underwritten by, you know, pretty sophisticated actors that wouldn't, you know, sign up for that unless they thought that they would succeed at a minimum. So, you know, I just I don't know it. I think if you look at like, crypto versus I like I is probably you know, trading at significantly higher multiples than anything.
00;33;57;25 - 00;34;20;16
Aaron
And and in the digital asset crypto ecosystem, whether traditional or even digitally native. And so it probably is one of the cheaper, or more cheaply priced portions of the, tech sector. So I think there's that element to it. I think the big challenge it's head is just like liquidity. Right. And that's why I do think it's like it's hard to predict.
00;34;20;16 - 00;34;39;17
Aaron
But I'd imagine, like if, if comprehensive legislation comes in, people know the rules, the road, those that have liquidity would feel comfortable kind of, playing in this ecosystem. I just don't think they're going to play in the same ecosystem that some of the NS played in or some of the, you know, active traders in the Erc20 market are going to play in.
00;34;39;19 - 00;34;52;07
Aaron
So I think that's the the like mental schism. And so if you're, you know, hardcore on Twitter and have been reading this for years, like you're just not you're not at the center of the ecosystem at this point.
00;34;52;11 - 00;35;20;25
Chris
Yeah, that's all true. What what's also true is crypto side of the hip at macro with macro. And if anything has further embedded its fate with that of macro. And like that's why I think crypto is over. I don't think the crypto is done. Like on the one hand, yes, like crypto is taking huge amounts of strides and cleaning itself up and gaining acceptance and integrating into the traditional financial system.
00;35;20;25 - 00;35;44;12
Chris
And that's the future of crypto. On the other hand, like everything else, crypto has done has just been like a rip and run zero trust PvP, you know, extraction game. You know, there's a there's a third part of crypto that's that's out there in which there are committed and dedicated builders. They, however, imagined a future that never came.
00;35;44;15 - 00;36;14;14
Chris
You know, they just missed from like a Steve Jobs in point of view, of actually anticipating needs. And so, you know, the to me, the crypto that carries forward is the crypto that basically allows people to do like complex financial engineering, you know, at a fraction of the cost in trustless environments and replacing the payment system. Both of those are like going to be very dependent on the larger macro economy.
00;36;14;14 - 00;36;17;21
Chris
And we head into recession. Crypto hedge along with it.
00;36;18;25 - 00;36;19;08
Pri
I don't know.
00;36;19;08 - 00;36;38;11
Aaron
I think that's I think that's right. I do think that, you know, a big piece of crypto is kind of the macro story. I guess I'm a probably a little bit more optimistic on that. Then. Then you, then you maybe. Chris, I just think, you know, the efficiency gains. I are beginning that's going to take 20 years to kind of sort out.
00;36;38;11 - 00;37;05;01
Aaron
Maybe there's some early evidence of that happening. I mean, you definitely see corporations acting this under the veneer of that, that could just be for, you know, cost cutting measures. Maybe they got a little bloated during the Covid era and want to just trim that down, which is obviously super unfortunate for the folks. Subject to that. And I'm not, I'm not, you know, minimizing that in any way, I do think that there just is like a lot of just global uncertainty, the tariffs, other things.
00;37;05;01 - 00;37;22;22
Aaron
My sense is, is that that should begin to tamp down. And if those two things kind of just play out, you know, I don't know I don't know if we're going to be heading kind of into, into the the more Duma, the Duma perspective. I do think, though, the composition of the digital asset market is just different.
00;37;22;22 - 00;37;55;15
Aaron
Right. So like they are probably more tethered to some of those macro trends. They are more concerned about things like like liquidity are more sensitive to like liquidity. And so that could just be the root problem. Here, you know, and you know, the crypto is competing with other assets. And if there are stocks that are flying or if there is private, you know, private opportunities and venture that are more attractive because, you know, all these companies are kind of ripping through now or, or, you know, generating tremendous amount of revenue in a pretty short order.
00;37;55;24 - 00;38;01;29
Aaron
It's not surprising that, you know, some of the luster, but, you know, fall out of the crypto market, at least in the near term.
00;38;02;02 - 00;38;17;08
Chris
Yeah. To me, like what crypto needs to keep going is Jay Powells done in February? Trump's numbers don't look great. And so it's the you know, money printing interest rates go to go to zero.
00;38;17;14 - 00;38;20;06
Aaron
I think that I wouldn't be surprised that that's what we're going right.
00;38;20;09 - 00;38;28;26
Pri
Like do the midterms like there's just no way I don't know, maybe I'm just over indexing on that. But like I feel like that's kind of directionally right.
00;38;28;29 - 00;38;45;01
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, you're even seeing it today like above the fold it with the times, right. Talking about Trump's new focus on affordability and economic frustration, I think that that's like his ground truth. And, you know, I imagine he's going to be pretty focused on that over the next couple couple quarters.
00;38;45;03 - 00;39;10;13
Chris
He has to be and I think he will be, whether he can execute on it in a way that matters, I am very doubtful because the problem is right. He doesn't control what CEOs do. He can create conditions at it. But at the same time, like every single CEO out there, I mean, look at Verizon. Verizon just dumped 15% of their workforce.
00;39;10;15 - 00;39;34;14
Chris
I saw that, right. And so that's the problem is unless you're handing out stimulus, you know, beyond like a $2,000 tariff check, you know, what's that $2,000 tariff check going to do? It's gonna go to your car payment, you know, it's going to go to your health care. And so that's the problem is like he can pull a lot of different levers.
00;39;34;14 - 00;39;41;18
Chris
At the end of the day, employment isn't buying what he's selling. And so like I don't know what to do about that.
00;39;41;20 - 00;40;02;02
Aaron
I think he let the market kind of play out right. Those they're going to make those independent decisions at least you know, from a fundamental perspective. Hopefully they're able to increase the margins and makes their stock prices more appealing. You know, that like kind of lifts up different aspects of those businesses. And it it kind of leads to, you know, some more growth like across the board.
00;40;02;06 - 00;40;21;02
Aaron
I just think it's going to take some time for that to work its way through the, the system. I think people want markets to move really quick, but they're pretty they're sometimes pretty slow. But it feels like they're the incentives are there to to kind of make sure it's a reasonably good predictor of things. But it's another, another week of we live in interesting times and.
00;40;21;16 - 00;40;25;00
Pri
Yeah, I mean, okay, total side tangent I'm going to do what.
00;40;25;07 - 00;40;25;17
Aaron
Where are we.
00;40;25;17 - 00;40;31;02
Pri
Going? As I, as I tend to do, just bring this chart down to the worst part of this. What are we.
00;40;31;02 - 00;40;33;19
Aaron
Going back in the gunner caves? Pray. Where are we going?
00;40;33;19 - 00;40;42;13
Chris
Oh, I think we're going to call the, the highlights of, g at vacation g vacation tours at gmail.com or whatever that address.
00;40;42;13 - 00;40;44;17
Aaron
No, no. Yeah. We not go there.
00;40;44;24 - 00;40;56;09
Pri
I mean, I do think I wonder if Trump will get crushed by it. Like, it's pretty crazy. Like the amount of. I mean, I've spent a lot of time this week reading those emails. I don't know if you guys have. They're entertaining.
00;40;56;12 - 00;41;13;19
Aaron
Yeah, I don't know. It's it's you know, he's very good at deflecting things, but it's, a lot of them are just like head scratchers. I just feel like we're not getting the full picture. Hopefully there's, like, more disclosures. I think, you know, some people have criticized that. It's pretty selective. So it's hard to it's hard to kind of know the full picture.
00;41;13;19 - 00;41;30;07
Aaron
But I do think it's good. Transparency is always a good thing. So, I'm glad people are getting the answers. The public kind of demanded and and should obviously, in my opinion, receive, you know, basic information related to this. So we're going to find out.
00;41;30;13 - 00;42;01;22
Pri
I mean, I guess it depends unless it's like a national security risk, which it may be, because he's pretty much an op ed from the amount of I mean, I've already I think everyone already suspected that. But the more of those emails that you read and like, just like his, just spider web of people, it's just there's something incredibly odd about his, like, network and the conversation that is pretty conclusive that he's he wasn't just like a financier.
00;42;01;29 - 00;42;12;00
Aaron
I don't know, I'm not going to read those emails. There's too much going on. And the noise is the signal pre, you know, you channel your a, you know, a six, seven.
00;42;12;18 - 00;42;41;14
Pri
Faces every selection of people and nothing else. It's like everyone from Larry Summers Dershowitz if you know. And then it's like Noam Chomsky, Steve Bannon, Larry Summers, his wife is a professor at Harvard that Obama White House counsel. Woman. Katie, whatever her or something like the frequency and the level of communication across like just people within Russian governments, like Israeli governments, U.S. government.
00;42;41;14 - 00;42;45;23
Pri
It's like weird. It's crazy. I'm kind of obsessed with it right now.
00;42;45;26 - 00;42;47;01
Aaron
It's, I guess it's.
00;42;47;02 - 00;42;50;12
Chris
There's small and everyone else. Yeah. Yeah.
00;42;50;14 - 00;42;53;21
Aaron
It's small at the top. Yeah, I think it's it's weird.
00;42;53;24 - 00;43;15;02
Chris
It's weird, and it's just decadent. And I mean, you know, like, I was selling for the call. I was, I was at, like, Faina and Meatpacking last night, and I wandered into the wrong room, and I was like, oh, cool. It's it's nothing but billionaires and Ukrainian hookers in here. And, you know, like, to me, like, that's, that's like the Epstein emails, you know, personified.
00;43;15;02 - 00;43;29;26
Chris
Just like filling a room, like, you know, these are these are the people who run the world, and they're all fucking corrupt. And, you know, they're all just playing games, and they all know each other, and they they stay on good terms with each other because.
00;43;29;28 - 00;43;31;04
Aaron
They're like, you know, elite.
00;43;31;04 - 00;43;33;29
Chris
Networks. This is how it works. This is how they function.
00;43;34;02 - 00;43;36;13
Pri
Yeah, I guess I mean, I wish it was that simple.
00;43;36;13 - 00;43;58;04
Aaron
But I think at some level it is though, and I do think, you know, in part and this is why disclosure so powerful, you know, as more and more this information is kind of sifted through and I, I'm not going to know enough or educate myself enough to have an opinion on this. But I just think it starts to rebuild trust in institutions, which is what you want, right?
00;43;58;04 - 00;44;21;29
Aaron
It's also why I personally, you know, find a lot of the blockchain stuff so appealing. It's more transparent, in some ways, which I think in the long run is a great way to kind of cultivate and build stability and trust. And so hopefully this is part of that process. You know, I think the fact that people were unwilling to do it, or unwilling to kind of release this stuff, I think made it a lot more salacious.
00;44;21;29 - 00;44;40;24
Aaron
And, you know, people's imaginations and whether it is or is not salacious, you know, we'll find out. But, I do think it's it's there's been a broad call from so many different, pockets to get more information about some of these unanswered questions. And I think it's reasonable for the public to demand that I know that they're tricky questions.
00;44;40;24 - 00;45;00;27
Aaron
I wouldn't want to be the decision maker deciding these types of questions. But I do think the long run it helps, like, kind of rebuild trust. You know, we have institutions that that are struggling to, to failing and a whole range kind of in between. And so it's it's good and healthy for these, these types of things to I think begin to happen.
00;45;00;29 - 00;45;05;29
Pri
Yeah. They're going to get worse before it gets better. This is very Nick Landon of us. All right.
00;45;05;29 - 00;45;23;11
Aaron
No I think it's I mean and that this is kind of my headline. I think it's ugly. It's it's tough to kind of watch the sausage being made, but like I do think things are just are getting better. Like, across the board, like you're seeing like chefs, you know, I was I was mentioning this to pretty Chris.
00;45;23;11 - 00;45;31;29
Aaron
I'm kind of curious if you feel this, but you remember, like a year and a half ago, they were like, it's the vibe shift, right? And that definitely, like, played out. I feel like there's kind of.
00;45;32;02 - 00;45;35;07
Chris
We're following the dimes for Covid vibe shift. Yeah. Yeah.
00;45;35;08 - 00;45;35;18
Aaron
Like what?
00;45;35;21 - 00;45;37;22
Chris
However that was five years ago dude.
00;45;37;24 - 00;45;41;22
Aaron
Yeah three years ago. That was like to two years ago ish.
00;45;41;25 - 00;45;43;28
Chris
Like that was like 21.
00;45;44;00 - 00;45;49;00
Aaron
No, it was that. What do you think play. Well we don't need to debate like the the origin.
00;45;49;02 - 00;45;53;19
Chris
There was a vibe shift. It was somewhere between 2 and 4 and a half years ago.
00;45;53;22 - 00;46;11;17
Aaron
There we go. We we compromised. I don't know, it feels like there's, like a new one afoot. I feel like there's going to be like another shift. And I feel like, you know, it's funny. You mentioned this a couple weeks ago in the pod, just about like, like a more emphasis on on humans and, like, humanity.
00;46;11;17 - 00;46;21;03
Aaron
I feel like that's what we're going to see next. It's like a, like a revival of that great enlightenment idea of humanism, like putting humans kind of at the center.
00;46;21;06 - 00;46;59;14
Chris
I would love for that to be the vibe shift, because right now, the vibe shift is really like just bouncing between ideological poles and ultimately realizing that neither of those poles actually gives a shit about you, or, if it does, is capable of effectuating any meaningful action right? Like, to me, the vibe shift we're in right now is really just realizing, like, Trump is Trump, and whatever he promised you this go around that sounded appealing because Biden Harris was like dangerously out of touch.
00;46;59;16 - 00;47;24;17
Chris
You know, like to me, I think a lot of aspirations were were hinged on, people saying, oh, this guy gets it. Like he can give us real talk because what we're being given from the other side is absolute, you know, like patronizing, sit in the corner and shut up. You know, type of bullshit. That was coming out of Democratic circles.
00;47;24;17 - 00;48;07;05
Chris
And so people responded to Trump. But like, Trump is Trump. You know, horses don't change the colors or whatever that expression is. And everyone's just kind of waking up to the fact that, like, okay, this guy sold us this whole bill of goods and what do we have instead? Right? Like continuing deteriorating conditions. And so if the next vibe shift is a complete rejection of, like, all power and all ideology and realizing that none of these systems are working for you, in fact, all of these systems are on email threads, with each other and conversing with like, the worst fucking people on Earth.
00;48;07;07 - 00;48;12;14
Chris
And you know what? Like, enough is enough. I would fucking love that to be the vibe shift because.
00;48;12;14 - 00;48;44;03
Aaron
So I think it's I think everybody now is in that conversation about just naked exercise as a power. And it's kind of a dead end. And so the reason I think that this shift could be more about, you know, like, this like human centric approach, if you think about it, it actually crosses like all ideological lines, like if people are talking about affordability, whether they're on the left or the right, it really is mostly about people's home and like their ability to just take care of themselves in some capacity, which is a strong like, you know, humanistic impulse.
00;48;44;06 - 00;49;02;10
Aaron
And I just think it's the same thing with tech, you know, like, I don't think it was intended, but it's just the end result. You know, like a lot of web2 technology, you really are just like a surf on these like digital platforms where you're renting things, you don't really own it. And I think people are are exhausted by that.
00;49;02;10 - 00;49;20;10
Aaron
Right? They're exhausted that they don't have control, that they're not at the center of these platforms. And I kind of exacerbates that in like a weird sort of way where you realize, like, you're just renting intelligence now, too, right? I, I don't know, I just feels like that maybe like the harmonizing force that that's eventually going to happen.
00;49;20;10 - 00;49;43;14
Aaron
Right? We're going to we're going to kind of re form around some like new consensus. And I wouldn't be surprised if it has like those elements a bit more in it. And I also think it kind of reaffirms a lot of, you know, the underlying philosophy of the West. Right, which which is why I think it has a shot of, of a revival for all the human humanness, people don't want humans in the center.
00;49;43;16 - 00;49;49;14
Aaron
I think it may be happening. That's always the vibe shift that I, I'm, I'm beginning to see.
00;49;49;17 - 00;50;14;04
Chris
Yeah. Like, there was a I maybe, like, a certain sadistic joy that people got out of. Oh, cool. We can hunt trans people for sport. We can pick off these marginalized groups because they, you know, are symbolic of, you know, this failed DNC regime. Okay. Now now you actually have to fucking pay, you know.
00;50;14;07 - 00;50;15;10
Aaron
The bill. Yeah.
00;50;15;13 - 00;50;34;16
Chris
You got to pay to pay your bills. And, you know, like, once you get a little further down Maslow's hierarchy, you can look up and say, well, fuck, none of these people actually give a shit about me. And, you know what? Like, this is America, and I'm a I like I am entitled to be able to make a life for myself.
00;50;34;16 - 00;51;04;04
Chris
My expectation should be one of upward mobility, and none of this shit is working. And so, yeah, it's the vibe shift is like, I'm living in a world of $80,000 trucks and million dollar homes, and the best you can offer me is, 50 year car, you know, 50 year mortgages and the 15 year car loans. All that saying to me is you just want, you know, to keep the boot on my on the back of my neck.
00;51;04;07 - 00;51;23;12
Aaron
Yeah. And I think or, you know, even with, you know, some of the immigration stuff, just see, you know, human life matters, right. I just think it's a, it's a very broad concept, I think universal one that people understand. But I do think it kind of grounds a lot of like reasonable critiques, like in 52 different sectors.
00;51;23;15 - 00;51;41;20
Aaron
And I think it's a little bit more optimistic and something I could see a lot of, a lot more folks really rallying behind. And I do think like AI is a bit of a trigger that. Right. You know, like we mentioned Verizon before, you know, those that 10% of the workforce, like they're going to have to go home and, you know, talk to their families and manage like a lot of stress related to that.
00;51;41;20 - 00;51;56;04
Aaron
And, you know, I think there is kind of like an like an anti humanity with some of these projects and platforms. And I think that that just kind of exacerbates the need to really like put the human at the center, not put power at the center, but put the human at the center.
00;51;56;10 - 00;52;25;07
Chris
Yeah. And that's why I like Y Combinator is going to come off looking like absolute shit over shit like Chad. I'd write like, yeah. Oh, it's it's fun. You won the day. Congrats. And you've also turned yourself off like from your expected. If you know when you get one of the unicorns to come out of your shop like you know, your expected customers, you know, like me, completely and utterly, utterly resentful, you know, over whose fondness.
00;52;25;07 - 00;52;37;13
Chris
So, yeah, that's like, you know, you're playing for today and your, your sacrificing tomorrow, but I'm bullish. Jon Snow, I do think it's time to fight for the living.
00;52;37;18 - 00;52;48;11
Aaron
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, even before we were talking about the cybersecurity stuff, you know, the bots are coming, right? So maybe the bots kind of unify us again, bring us back together in.
00;52;48;11 - 00;52;50;21
Chris
Our the White Walkers. Yeah.
00;52;50;23 - 00;53;20;16
Aaron
The bottom, the White Walkers, they bring us together. I kind of think that that's what's happening though. Like I do think there is this, like looming battle with like automation. I think one possible state, it becomes like Luddite, like, I'm sure there'll be threats of that. But I think most people are, on balance, okay with it. You know, maybe it means we could finally have this vision of, like, a three day workweek or, you know, not having to put as much labor in to get, you know, as much, wealth and, abundance.
00;53;20;19 - 00;53;43;16
Aaron
But I do think it kind of like, weirdly have like a unifying effect. And I think as this tech is beginning to kind of go through it's phase shift and it just all the like, counterarguments and, you know, critiques are just falling away like day by day, month by month. I just feel like it. People will hopefully rally around, the living.
00;53;43;18 - 00;53;55;08
Pri
Hopeful. Well, then you're like, the irony of all this is like, you watch Game of Thrones and took this on a wild vibe, coding and having lots of machines going. And, you know, it's scary.
00;53;55;11 - 00;54;07;27
Aaron
The SARS and bringing together all the threads of your life to let's just play slavery and then, you can still be a champion for the living. But I think that's kind of like it feels right. Like I think a lot of people could get behind that.
00;54;08;00 - 00;54;33;20
Chris
I mean, to exist is to be complicit, right? Like, that's that's like the fundamental truth of our age is like, we cannot be completely like moral actors. We are so hopelessly entangled in the systems that, like, are all around us. We're also, like entangled by our programing. Right? Like my cultural programing is to be exceptional like that. That is what was drilled into me.
00;54;33;20 - 00;54;48;03
Chris
And there are certain things I'm really good at. And it just so happens that, like the thing I'm best at, a product came out that makes me even better and less dependent and so able to do it even more like, what the hell am I supposed to do? Yeah.
00;54;48;03 - 00;55;04;29
Aaron
No, no, you're just you're I mean, you are exceptional. I hope you feel that. I know, I know, I think that's the case. I'm sure you do. To pray. I think it's really. What? You know, what you were pointing out again a couple weeks ago in the pod. It's like. To what end, right? Like why? Like, why are we automating things like, what's the endpoint?
00;55;04;29 - 00;55;33;11
Aaron
And I think it by like, grounding it back in a person and humanity and making humans more human, it actually like it. It's helpful. Like if, if you're just automating to like gain more power, to gain more market share, you know, to increase profits, it feels like vacuous and empty. But if you're automating all these processes to, you know, improve and put and maintain humans and humanity at the center, I think that that is, a pretty empowering message.
00;55;33;18 - 00;55;54;08
Aaron
You know, like, we could talk about robots, like automating factory lines, but in reality, if they're able to help us build more, cheaper, better housing, right. And that's an issue for a lot of people. Just the cost of that. Like that's what the emphasis should kind of be on, like in my mind or something that I could see people either opportunistically or, you know, philosophically, like rallying behind.
00;55;54;11 - 00;56;08;06
Aaron
Yeah. And I think it just crosses a lot of divides. So, you know, hopefully we're I hope fingers crossed. We're like edging away from like just these raw exercises of power, which I think is really been the hallmark of the past decade and into something that's like a little bit more productive.
00;56;08;08 - 00;56;12;26
Chris
We're going to call this episode the vibe shift to Humanism. Is that to,
00;56;12;28 - 00;56;14;08
Pri
I like to layman earnest.
00;56;14;12 - 00;56;19;02
Aaron
It's too earnest. Yeah. Sorry for all that earnestness, guys.
00;56;19;04 - 00;56;27;26
Chris
I mean, Jon Snow is often sounding like a tool out there and getting mocked, and he just kept on being Jon Snow. So he kept.
00;56;27;26 - 00;56;29;26
Aaron
On living in the worst of it all.
00;56;29;26 - 00;56;32;21
Pri
That we come up with. We fight for the living for something.
00;56;32;27 - 00;56;35;02
Aaron
Yeah. Like that. That's a good one.
00;56;35;05 - 00;56;42;18
Chris
All right, there we go. We sign for the living before we we close this off for you. Are you doing Death by Lightning? Are you in it?
00;56;42;20 - 00;56;44;26
Pri
I am two episodes in.
00;56;44;29 - 00;56;47;23
Chris
Okay. Are you. Are you loving it or how you feel about it?
00;56;47;24 - 00;56;59;00
Pri
I I'm into it. I mean, like, I feel like the plot hasn't fully taken off yet, but I've been, like, on the James Garfield Wikipedia page, and, like, I feel like I need to understand, like what? Yeah. Like I watched the.
00;56;59;00 - 00;57;14;18
Aaron
First episode of that. I thought that that would. I thought our last selection was going to be exactly like that. I thought it was going to be a 5050 split. And then, you know, we got like this, this, dark horse candidate that came out of the woodwork. I still think that that was what I honestly saw so many problems.
00;57;14;21 - 00;57;35;10
Pri
I also feel like I didn't really understand, like the Reconstructionist and the stalwarts and like all of that dynamic within the Republican Party at the time that I like, need to spend a little bit more time educating myself about before I like. I want to watch it, but I also want to read more about all of that era of like what happened post-Civil War and like, well, I just.
00;57;35;10 - 00;57;35;27
Aaron
Think, I.
00;57;35;27 - 00;57;43;05
Chris
Think that that's the high point for me. That's the takeaway is you're not going to get any more black senators after that.
00;57;43;08 - 00;58;02;05
Aaron
Which is clearly unfortunate and was unfortunate. You know, I think to me, I think I was actually really glad that somebody greenlit that. I think there's like this notion that America has been just, like, neat, an orderly. At least I feel that way. I feel like that's the way I was educated. I don't know if you guys agree with that, but if you really, like, start digging into the history of the US.
00;58;02;05 - 00;58;25;24
Aaron
It was a hot mess just left, right and center. You know, we burnt down central banks twice. You know we have, you know, all this like political violence has always been at the heart of it. The political process has always been messy. And I feel like we just had this, like, period post-World War two where that was either obscured or, you know, just, everything, the stars aligned to make sure that that wasn't the case.
00;58;25;24 - 00;58;30;26
Aaron
And we're just kind of back to, like, business as usual here in the States, which is just utter madness left.
00;58;30;27 - 00;58;47;18
Chris
At the center. No, that's a really good point, because we had this, like Ken Burns in view of history, where we had George Washington, the Founding Fathers, then we had Lincoln, then we had FDR, and then our actual like conscious knowledge of U.S. history extends from World War Two onwards.
00;58;47;21 - 00;58;49;20
Pri
Right. It's a pearl. Yeah.
00;58;49;23 - 00;59;13;21
Chris
I, I just want to say with Death by Lightning, it is a murderer's row of like, those guys like the casting in. That is phenomenal. Yeah. And like, I mean, so I want more screen time. That's, Eli from, Boardwalk Empire. I want, your man there, Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec. I want a Chester Arthur eight like, spin off.
00;59;13;21 - 00;59;19;27
Chris
I want eight episodes of his administration. I want to know what the sausage man is doing in the white House.
00;59;19;29 - 00;59;40;23
Aaron
But I think that's important because I think, you know, a we should underline, like, kind of our shared identity and history for the good, bad and ugly. But at the same time, I do think, I do think that this is kind of how it's made. And like the US has always been a kind of a madhouse politically, like they used to be senators that, like, beat each other up on the floor of the Senate.
00;59;40;23 - 00;59;58;28
Aaron
You know, I think somebody got beaten to death way back in the day, like on the floor of the Senate. So, you know, things have been worse. And I think contextualizing and explaining that this is kind of an open or more open decentralized systems kind of look like. And it's okay, is is something that needs to kind of get into the public consciousness.
00;59;58;28 - 01;00;06;19
Aaron
So so it sounds like, Chris, we got to fund some, humanist endeavors. And then, you know, maybe some more of these types of shows.
01;00;06;26 - 01;00;26;08
Pri
Yeah. By the way, I partied with Eli from Boardwalk Empire once by accident. I was a light club and, like, hit him in the Boardwalk Empire team or behind us and the like, or, like, come hang out with us. So me and my friend, like, hung out with them all night, and then they invited us to dinner the next day, but I was like, didn't feel like going.
01;00;26;11 - 01;00;28;25
Pri
So it was like awkward.
01;00;28;27 - 01;00;34;28
Chris
Yeah. How did it feel to hang out with the B-team of HBO prestige TV?
01;00;35;01 - 01;00;39;20
Pri
And I was like, well, I kind of recognize them, but like, so true.
01;00;39;23 - 01;00;40;08
Aaron
So true.
01;00;40;08 - 01;00;48;10
Pri
Chris yeah, this is not even worth mentioning because it's like so mad. But, no, it felt cool. I was like, really?
01;00;48;13 - 01;00;55;29
Aaron
That vintage of HBO got overshadowed by The Sopranos and The Wire and some other their, their star properties.
01;00;56;02 - 01;00;59;04
Chris
Deservedly so. If Boardwalk Empire wasn't that good.
01;00;59;06 - 01;01;00;29
Aaron
I never got into it. Yeah. At all.
01;01;01;04 - 01;01;08;10
Chris
It was like two moody and middling and, like, the characters weren't strong enough. Like, it was just kind of a stew.
01;01;08;12 - 01;01;25;01
Aaron
Did you see the the guy that put together The Sopranos? Like, he published something or there's an interview, or he's saying that this emphasis on the antihero is probably part of the reason why there's so many issues now. I thought that was kind of self-reflective and kind of interesting.
01;01;25;03 - 01;01;28;14
Chris
Mia culpa. Hang himself. Yeah, a little bit like, Like what?
01;01;28;21 - 01;01;33;12
Aaron
What Pandora's box that I open up by, like lionizing these villains.
01;01;33;14 - 01;01;47;00
Chris
Yeah. That's true, it's true. And now we're seeing, like, a whole generation of, like, crack junior founders just living in fast twitch Call of Duty style. Yeah. Worlds. So maybe tipper Gore was right.
01;01;47;02 - 01;01;48;11
Aaron
I'm not going to go that far.
01;01;48;14 - 01;01;53;10
Chris
And I think she was dead fucking wrong. Oh, I want to fight for my right to party.
01;01;53;11 - 01;01;56;05
Aaron
Absolutely. All right, guys, let's call it all right.
01;01;56;07 - 01;01;56;28
Chris
Yeah.
01;01;57;01 - 01;02;16;17
Pri
They'll do the intro. Welcome to society to you have me, Chris Aaron talking all things tech art, movies, TV shows, I really anything just as a quick reminder these thoughts and opinions on our own and not an employer. And this is not financial advice. Thanks.
01;02;16;17 - 01;02;17;17
Chris
I'll see ya.
01;02;17;20 - 01;02;30;11
Pri
Bye bye.