speaker-0: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Occasionally Philosophical the Father and Son podcast, where we sit down with two mics and way too many questions about the just everything. ⁓ we're not experts, we're not gurus, teachers, professors, none of that. And we're not trying to be, but we are very curious about the world and you know, we're just kind of thinking about out loud about
speaker-1: All right. So speaking of stuff, we were talking a little bit about Well yeah, and I I'm I I remain dug at least I think so for today at least.
speaker-0: Mark. This is ⁓ episode forty two, so we're
speaker-1: The answer to life. The ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything. It is your lucky day because you just tuned in to episode forty two. Thanks a lot for joining, and we'll see you next time. All right, Mark. So we were before we turned the mics on, ⁓ we were ⁓ going over a little bit of ⁓ the news is still it's still floating through the information ⁓ ecosystem that that
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Thoreau or Thoreau d documentary on the Manosphere. right. We were talking about that and how ⁓ You were saying that you had seen something about ⁓ some guy who was actually proud of the fact that he didn't even cry at his his own father's funeral. And how did you feel about that?
speaker-0: Yeah. I I thought it was just crazy 'cause it's like I okay, I get it. I'm a man. I grew up in this whatever, men don't cry. So, you know, even though like you for the most part taught me that it was okay to express my emotions and things like that, I I was still influenced by mother culture and just everything, you know. So
speaker-1: What it's unseemly for a man to cry in public.
speaker-0: Yeah, but it's just like, bro, that's a funeral. Like I I like all the places, like, even in in masculinity, the performance of masculinity, like I think crying at a funeral is acceptable, especially if it's your parents, either one of your parents or, you know, another close ⁓ family member. And it's like Yeah, that's like when it's like that's toxic. See, like, and see, and that's the difference, I think. It's like, I don't know, if you want to say like masculinity is not necessarily you know, stoic and not necessarily showing your emotions all the time. Okay, like whatever. It's it's kind of fine. That could be, you know, performing masculinity, but it's like that being proud, I guess, of like never crying, not even at a really, really sad situation. That's Sh that's obviously toxic. Now, where exactly it crosses over from normal masculinity to toxic masculinity, I'm sure we could talk all day, but I think we could agree that not being proud of not crying at your father's funeral would definitely cross the line into toxic.
speaker-1: Yeah, I you know, no matter what, I mean, and a lot of men have very complicated relationships with their father. Yeah. ⁓ you know, my my father was the absent guy. Yeah never around in my life and you know, and and when he was around it was n not good for me. Right. So but when he died, I felt sad. Right. He's the man who brought me I mean, you know
speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah.
speaker-1: For better or worse, he brought me into this stupid planet. And ⁓ you know, and for better or worse, you know, I have had I have had some fun along the way. So ⁓ you know, and I got, you know, I brought you into the world and we had a decent run so far. So you know, that but that that you know, this idea that men can't be like complete emotional beings, right? And so then you get these stunted men or young men, right, who are either ⁓ getting sucked into this this weird, you know, world that y I try to stay away from. I try not to look into it just because I would rather focus on what what can I do, what can I familiarize myself with and make myself available to, you know, these young men that are, you know, lost. Right? Like, you know, I've over over the last couple of weeks I've mentioned that every once in a while on those YouTube shorts, there's this one young man that comes up and he's just ranting at his little you know, he does the TikTok thing sitting in his car. ⁓ yeah. Well, he did a ⁓ I saw ⁓ Another short of his yesterday where he was he wasn't ranting this time. You know, he like wasn't yelling at the billionaires or whatever. He was basically answering the question like, why are young men radicalized? Right. And he was talk and apparently from the from the the background and hid the fact that he was talking about living in a town of 2,000 people.
speaker-0: Yeah. Right.
speaker-1: I'm assuming it's like Midwest, Kansas, Nebraska, 'cause like the background of him sitting in his car was just like open fields and stuff. And I thought and he's talking about what radicalized him was like going with his father to like a like a town hall or a city council meeting or something like that where they had proposed like free lunch free school lunches for everybody regardless of income. Right? Yeah. And they went to the the city council meeting and there were all these people that were getting up there talking about how that wasn't fair, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the the young man's father got up there and talked about how when he was a young boy
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: He was the one who was getting the free lunch and the shame of having, you know, of having to accept the free lunch. And he ended his little speech in the city council by saying, if anybody's got a problem with the lunches, you can bill me. And he kid talks about his father being like one of those men of the earth, you know, so strong he can be like ⁓ bend horseshoes with his bare hands, you know, kind of thing. So, you know, he's got some respect for his dad.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: But I thought and he says what radicalized him is that the same people that are going to church every Sunday are the same people that are complaining about giving f meals to kids that need it. And that's what radicalized him. Right. It's not the fact it's not any of this other stuff. It's the fact that you're going to church, right? And he goes to church. I mean, obviously, right? Every Sunday kind of thing. And all those people are there, yet
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: He's reading his Bible and he's hearing what the preacher is saying and the the same people that are sitting in the seats next to him are the ones that are saying, No, don't give free meals to kids.
speaker-0: Yeah. I mean one of the the I don't know, I mean to me it was one of the more famous or more standout stories in the the Chronicles of Jesus, ⁓ was when he you know, the sh the fish and the bread, when he
speaker-1: Well yeah, the the what is it? Loaves and fishes. There was only like a couple of fish and a couple of loaves of bread, but yet he fed everybody there.
speaker-0: Yeah. You know, now obviously that was some form of miracle magic, you know, being able to divide that. But then you could also be like, I don't know, maybe everybody just got like a little thin slice. Like what was that ⁓ what was that old Disney cartoon where the Mickey was like slicing the the I forgot, was that the Christmas Carol? ⁓ whatever, anyways. They had the bread and him and Donald and I think Goofy was there and he sliced it like so thin you could like see through the bread.
speaker-1: Well, ⁓ what I ⁓ one of the versions of the story that I heard, which I thought was interesting, was like, ⁓ all these people gathered around the riverbank or whatever to hear Jesus speak, right? Yeah. And you know, and they're okay, they got the basket and there's like however many loaves and however many fishes, I forget the numbers. But it was like as they started like to to feed, ever all the people started reaching into their own little bags. Right. And grabbing a handful of ri you know, whatever they had. And suddenly, you know, yeah, two loaves and, you know, five fishes or whatever it is becomes everybody eats because everybody brought a little ⁓ added it to.
speaker-0: The The act of the initial act of
speaker-1: The initial act of sharing was enough to get everybody else to reach into their pocket and take what little they had.
speaker-0: Right.
speaker-1: Now I don't know, you know, that's just one of those things. You're wandering along the internet, you read a blog post and somebody says, you know, offers that version of the story, you know.
speaker-0: Yeah. So but yeah, but I mean back to the the radicalization. You have this story of Jesus feeding everybody or try attempting to, you know, and then it's like you're voting against free lunch.
speaker-1: Yeah. And why would you vote against the free launch?
speaker-0: Right. It's I mean
speaker-1: I mean I can I I can understand like people are going, Well, that's coming out of our taxes and if you're giving free lunches to the kids that don't need a free lunch, you're wasting our money. Well, by giving every kid a free lunch, we're not shaming anyone.
speaker-0: It does a stigma. Yeah.
speaker-1: Yeah, we're not stigmatizing everyone. All the kids come in, they all get a free lunch. Nobody has to feel like they have to hide their head. You know, it's like it's like going to the going to the store with your ⁓ what is it, EBT card? Right?
speaker-0: Yeah, right. There's a stigma attached to it.
speaker-1: There's stigma attached to it, you know? 'Cause you ⁓ you're on food stamp.
speaker-0: Yeah, and I seem to remember Like like when I was in high school, there was like the cafeteria and there was like the the food where, you know, you go, you have your money and like you could pick. Like we they used to have like Taco Bell burritos and like Subway sandwiches and shit, stuff like that. ⁓ you know, it was like not like you could just get whatever. It was just like they had a turkey sandwich from Subway, like pre wrapped and everything or whatever and they Like bean and cheese burritos from Taco Bell. ⁓ but there was like another line that was like the school lunch, which that was like separate. So it's like everybody knew, like, you know, you ate over there. Like that's the free lunch line or the two dollar lunch, or but, you know, back when I was a, you know, kid, it was, I don't know, it was cheap. I I remember you used to give me like $20 on Monday, and that would sort of last me the whole week. Depending on how well I budgeted my lunch money.
speaker-1: Now that's not enough to get you through a day.
speaker-0: Yeah. Well I I like I remember like we used to be able to get like the little thing of fries for like a like a dollar. Mm-hmm. Like a side of fries like at at break time or whatever for like a dollar. But anyways how does this and how does the how did that connect to the manosperit w or the rag radicalism?
speaker-1: Well, the radicalization. Right. You get radicalized, right? You're angry. You're angry, you know, like the and these are Gen Z, you know. I mean that young that particular young man who I saw, you know, Gen obviously Gen Z, and they're angry, right? Now, d do they get sucked into that thing out of anger or do they end up somewhere else? Right. But You know, like this this idea that you know, we're we're hating on everyone. And like I said, yeah, I I I mentioned that I saw that one ⁓ that one podcast, it was like a two hour discussion with ⁓ two men, two women, and the theme and the the title of the podcast was Why Do Women Hate Men? And I'm like, Well, gee, you know, throw a little gas on the fire, why don't you? Right? You know, you're a young man and all you're hearing is how Women hate men. No, they don't. I I don't think, you know, or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they do, you know. I
speaker-0: Well I think it think stuff like that, ⁓ it's it's we kind of touched on it the other day when we were chatting, but like There's the world is complicated. ⁓ everything has nuance. Are there are there probably a lot of people, women that hate men, men that hate women, all the yes, there ⁓ there's a lot, right? But once you the problem is is like it it's like that simplicity of all women hate men. That's simple. It's a simple concept for somebody to wrap their head around. Right. So in in the internet, like that's what flies. Like everybody they latch on to that simple stuff, you know. So it's it's like, yeah, maybe in this two hour conversation, right? They're I don't know. I don't know what podcast it is. I didn't listen to it, so I can't but it just maybe during this two hour conversation they were having a very nuanced discussion. about the relationship between men and women and misogynistic men and how that affects women and the patriarchy and all these various things, right? Because it is a very complicated and delicate topic. Is there a problem with misogyny? Of course. Yes, there is. You know, is it all men? No. You know, but it's like you start getting, you know, but that's the problem. It's like as soon as with anything, it's ⁓ whether it's racism, sexism, Whatever is
speaker-1: Yeah, ableism, whatever.
speaker-0: You start once you start painting everybody with a broad brush in any group. You're gonna run into problems because that thing we say all the time, it's like you're gonna run into reality. Reality's gonna be your theory, you know. And it's gonna lose because it's like, yeah, all women hate men. Okay, how am I married? Right? Like it's obviously some women, a lot of men are married, you know what I mean? And it's like all anytime you say all XRX or all X R Y. It's just you're gonna run into problems. But that's part of like that's the engagement. Like it's like they do it all. Right. It's that's the engagement part. Because like I said, they might have had a very nuanced conversation to what?
speaker-1: So the attention economy. It wasn't as you know, black and white as the title of the title. Now you're you're familiar with the guy. ⁓ what is his name? Chris ⁓ Chris Williamson, Modern Wisdom. Anyway, if you if you look up mod if you go to YouTube and you look up the Modern Wisdom podcast, ⁓ you can find the it's a it's like a two hour thing. You're not gonna have time to to watch it because I know your schedule. ⁓ but ⁓ you can you can get ⁓ you could even just scan the transcript and get a sense for what because like the the two women that were on there were talking about the conflicting messages that women get. So On the one hand you have the the liberated, you know, go, you know, be a lawyer, be a CEO, you know, do your thing, right? You don't need you don't need a man to, you know, carry you and all that kind of stuff. There's that, right? The empowered woman. And apparently, at least according to these two young women that were on the podcast ⁓ with Chris, ⁓ That particular cohort, at least for young women, is more exemplified by ⁓ what what's her name? Hermione ⁓ Emma Watson, the actress. Yeah, was it Emma Watson who played Hermione Granger? Yeah, yeah. But anyway, like so that particular cohort of young women are sort of in that ⁓ Emma Watson as an influencer, you know, ⁓ thing. Okay. And then you have this other cohort. of young women that are more ⁓ traditionalists, you know, like the Judeo Christian, you know, sort of stay at home mom. Trad wife, I think they call it. But that's like the extreme edge. Like the trad wife is the extreme edge of that, you know, more ⁓ traditional. You're a young woman, you make yourself make yourself a, you know, you study the things that will enable you to be a good
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: homem maker, right, and support for ⁓ your husband so that he can be successful. In that behind every great man is a woman thing, right? That we you know that I used to hear growing up. You know, it was, you know, because like that was the thing of the patriarchy, right? Was that the man was out there doing all the stuff and he was supported by the woman. Yeah. The woman took care of all the things that ⁓ need to be done but that would occupy too much of the brain power that would then you know could then you know that the man has the brain power to solve the problems of the world where the woman has the brain power to solve the problems of the home. Right. Right. Now you can take that sexist thing and punt it, you know, into another universe. But that's the you know, that was the attitudes that underlied that, at least as far as I've been able to work out, right? So now you have you have like young women that are trying to navigate, well, how am I supposed to be? Like what role or how am I supposed to be in the world, right, that's going to be meaningful to me, that's going to give me the kind of life that I want to have. Right. And now they're out there with all these competing stories. Meanwhile, the one they're If they're heterosexual women, right, they're looking for a ⁓ a mate, right? But now, all right, but now you've got the fear factor that comes into play, right? Because if you're on if you're on the one track, if you're a woman on the one track, like the liberated take care of myself, well, what kind of man do you want? You want a man who takes care of himself. You want the man who's out there who's not taking no for an answer, who's being successful, right? Because that's you. You don't want like if you're that kind of woman, the the young man who's more than who's perfectly content to have a six pack, a blunt, and his controller.
speaker-0: Yeah. working at a warehouse job or
speaker-1: Yeah, we're working at a warehouse job or whatever it is. Right. You're in you're, you know, but if you're if you're that guy and your image of the kind of woman that you that should be with you is this driven, you know, successful, you know, going to the gym, right? You know, woman, you're gonna be disappointed because she's gonna look right over your head. She's not even gonna see you. Right.
speaker-0: Like you are.
speaker-1: But then you're sitting there going, but now you're a young man and you're being told that you need to go to college, you need to be in good shape, you need to do all this stuff. And you do all that stuff and guess what? You can't get a job. And you end up working at a warehouse. Right. You got your college degree, you got two hundred thousand dollars worth of debt that you're never gonna be able to pay off. Right. And or you're jumping from one entry level position to another with your business degree.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: But you keep getting laid off because all these companies are rolling out their AI things. You're studying AI, trying to keep up. But every time you get a leg up, they just cut some more jobs. Now, on the other ⁓ the good news is that I did see ⁓ the other day that companies are starting to hire people back. Okay. Because the AI thing ain't really working out all that good.
speaker-0: Yeah. It all started.
speaker-1: Imagine that. You know, statistical text generation to you know to ⁓ replace your employees.
speaker-0: I don't know. It just kinda like I feel like AI is probably the same thing as most like, yeah, we have all these, you know, over the course, you know, of human history and even more so in the last, I don't know, hundred years, you know, technology keeps advancing, right? We keep getting more and more tools and machines and robots and what have you. But like ultimately, like there's always needs to be like a person. There needs to be some human there. Like, for example, self-checkout. Yeah, I'm doing all the work. This robot is helping me check out my groceries, but like I still need a human intervention when this thing messes up, which it will.
speaker-1: Well all right, here's the thing.
speaker-0: Yeah. So that's what I mean. Like, yeah, you might be able to like with AI, they might be able to like limit jobs. You know, for example, in my analogy with the self checkout, it's like you'll have six self checkouts in one person manning all six of ⁓ or ten of them.
speaker-1: 'Cause that one the one person has the little card. And so, you know, like I I'm an old man now, so I'm always going through the ⁓ day old stuff, you know, the you know so I can get the special, right? And you know, now you you grab some meal that you know, pre pre made meal that's on sale for fifty percent off. Right. And so you take it over, you take it to the self checkout, you scan it, and then you put it on the thing.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: And then the thing's spinning around going checking weight, checking weight. And then the guy has to come over, scan his little thing, hit the button, and you you move on. Right. So the human in the loop thing all the time. But, you know, my my particular thing, living alone, being old, and I'm the I'm the one of the target markets, right, for AI companions. And my experience with these things is like, ⁓
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-1: You can take those things and put ⁓ on a rocket and send it to Jupiter. You know, as far as like a companion, i it it's there is nothing there to relate to.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Right. So like that that thing just flies out the window, right? And the fact that it can't maintain context. See, you and I have been talking for roughly forty years, right? Forty two. Once you started having language when you were around two or three years old, we've been talking, right? You know me.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: You have a picture of me. I don't have to remind you of something that I told you fifteen years ago most of the time.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: But with ⁓ with these chatbots I can have a two hour conversation on like a paper or a c a collection of papers because I'm trying to figure something out. And then two days later, after having thought about it for a while, you know, sit back down at the same chat bot, not a different chat bot, the same one. Yeah. And bring up that thing and it has absolutely no fucking idea what we were talking about. You know, like what and see what we, right? Anthropomorphic language. It's me typing into a prompt window, getting something that looks like human communication back out.
speaker-0: Yeah. Right.
speaker-1: But you know, there ain't nothing there to relate to. There ain't you know, and then you were saying ⁓ something before we hit the record thing that you were you were frustrated at work and so you had ⁓ your chat GPT and you just vented at it for a minute, like, get this shit out of my head, right, so I can get back to work. And chat GPT is coming back with I understand how you feel, and you and what was your reaction?
speaker-0: Well no, what it it said ⁓ it's what it sa it didn't say I well it did say I understand how you feel, but that wasn't what what caught my attention. It was said it said I would feel the same way. And I was like, What do you mean I?
speaker-1: Yeah. You're who are you?
speaker-0: Right. Like you're you're not a consciousness in the way that we understand consciousness. So there is no I there. So I don't know. So but it's it's we've touched on this a lot, and I know we're I feel like we're kind of moving off of the male, whatever we were talking about, but whatever. But it it's I see how it can happen. Like I Get like the AI, like I understand how people could be sucked in and and confused and convinced by it. But it's like it's probably part of it is a result of all these conversations that we've had about it. But it's like those things where it's as soon as it starts acting like I almost prefer like like we I've mentioned it a bunch of times. It's like I I j I started using it because I didn't like the email templates that I had at my job that I would send out to clients. And so I was like, Hey, maybe I can use this to like spice ⁓ up or maybe, you know, whatever. And so initially it's, you know, when I'm doing that type of stuff, it doesn't really do the ⁓ I know how you feel, type of stuff. Like, ⁓ it wants me to re ⁓ the the you know, they they want me to redo the email. All right, and just redoes it. But that thing where like I was just kind of like got annoyed with my job and just kind of I didn't even ask it for anything. I just was like, let me just let this out because if not, I'm gonna be
speaker-1: Right, right.
speaker-0: cursing at my boss or whatever. It's not gonna be a good look. So let me just curse at Chat GPT. Yeah. You know. And like I had mentioned something else about it too that I noticed when it was like I'm brainstorming like these ideas. And it's giving me ideas that I could like try to, you know, flesh out more. And then later on in the conversation, it's telling me that that idea that it gave me was my idea. It wasn't a idea.
speaker-1: Well, I w I I don't know if you recall, but like ⁓ when I was using ⁓ the LLMs badly, I was ⁓ trying to get them to do something that they're not really good to do. Yeah. One of the things that I noticed would be like, well, I was trying to update a ⁓ a block of ⁓ code in in an Excel spreadsheet ⁓ for ⁓ Power Query. And the L LM generated the code. I pasted it in, I ran it, there was an error. So I go, okay, there's an error. And I s and I I give the error back to the LLM. And the LLM's response is, ⁓ I see what you did. I'm like, I didn't write that code. You did. Right? It's the gaslighting thing. Right. Right. Well, and then remember when Charlie Kirk got got murdered. Right?
speaker-0: Yeah. Right.
speaker-1: It was like the day after that it happened, right? And because it was new, obviously the training data's not updated with it because it just happened the day before. Right. So when I first, you know, typed it in about what drives people to murder like that, you know, like I mean I didn't think I didn't think he was saying anything worth listening to, but you know, you didn't need to kill him. Yeah, just ignore him, right? Kind of thing. That was my question.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: basically like what drives people to do that. And, you know, it claim ⁓ well, no, you know, Charlie Kirk. And I said, well, no, go ahead and look. Right. And I gave it a link to like an ABC News website. It confirmed it. ⁓ yeah, absolutely. And then when I started talk when I went back to the radicalization thing, like what causes, like trying to trace that All of a sudden, now I'm getting, you know, Chat GPT or Claude, I think it was Claude, was now telling me that actually Charlie Kirk was still alive and that it was giving me a media literacy lesson.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Wait, you j I just sent you two, a CNN link and an ABC News link. Right. These are legitimate not spam sites, you know. The a actual ABC News, actual CNN, Charlie Kirk murdered. And you confirmed it. You went to the website, you confirmed it. And now two turns later, you're telling me that those websites were scams and that I need to be more discerning.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: And I'm like ⁓ that you know, that was one of my ⁓ exper well now I'm only a couple of months into using these LLMs, so I knew right then and there that I couldn't trust these things. Right. And my experience since then just reinforces that over and over and over again. And so now you circle back around to our hey, how did we get to the how do we get leave the manosphere? Well, we're right back again. Right? Because people are going to these chatbots now.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: And you look at the statistics, like the number of teens, right, that are using these chatbots is is astronomical, right? And so now they're going in. So maybe I'm, you know, I'm little Tommy over here and ⁓ you know, I I start to see some of those videos, right? That that pipeline that leads you down to that, you know, the toxic end of that that tunnel. And I go to my chat bot. Right. And my sycophantic chat bot is now, you know, telling me that my insecurities, you know, are justified and that, you know, and and I'm building this thing in this chat bot now. So now I've got this bad information that I'm getting from say YouTube or whatever, Instagram, TikTok, whatever. And now I'm trying to verify it in a chat bot.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Right. And I don't know how to use it. Right. Right. And you know, like in my own research, that's why my LinkedIn series is called Metacognitive Awareness and Other Fairy Tales. Right. It's because no matter what w no matter where you go as far as like ⁓ protecting yourself, protecting your cognitive integrity when you're using an AI, it's like, ⁓ you got metacognitive awareness. You got you know, pay attention to your own thinking. All right. Well that's fine, but that's not a skill that's fully developed at fourteen. Right. It's something that even you are still developing that that ability. It's just it's a lifelong process.
speaker-0: Yeah. Because I don't think it really comes naturally. And if don't if you're not consciously if you're not consciously trying to do it, it you're never gonna just do it, I don't think.
speaker-1: Well part of it is like your parents are or you know, like your parents and and other adult role models when you're kids are modeling some of it for you. Right. In other words, you know, you're upset. Well they're asking you well, do you know why you're upset? Right. Right. That's part of the metacognitives. You know, ⁓ well I'm upset because right. Or now and then you get later it's you're thinking about your thinking. You're thinking about how do you learn best. You're thinking about when do you learn best? Under what conditions? Do you need noise? Do you need music in your ears? You do you need dead quiet? Yeah. You know, like in these kinds of things. You know, and then it's also monitoring what's going on with you emotionally and intellectually as this stuff is happening, right? You know, like ⁓ we've we've touched on how you feel. when you're scrolling through, say TikTok, right? All right, you're out there grub hubbing, right? You're trying to make a few extra bucks and you're bored. Right. Because there's no order. ⁓ you're sitting there in your car in a parking lot somewhere near a restaurant and you go, okay, TikTok. You know, you'll scroll through your phone, right? You don't want to really get into anything. You don't want to start listening to marks, right? Because it's, you know, I think you're right. That's that requires some attention, you know. So it's like, you know what, TikTok is mindless. I'll just scroll through it.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-1: But are you paying attention to how you feel? Right. When you see something. Right. Am I does that make me angry? Does that make me want to repla you know, that's all part of this metacognitive awareness. Right. So that when you go when you sit down in front of Chat GPT or Claude or Gemini or Grok or whatever, are you bringing that same skill so that when you see something on your screen?
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: that you're do I feel validated by that? If I feel validated, I should probably pause and and look a little bit closer. Right. You know, kind of thing. And then ⁓ right. So these you know, you have young people, young men, young women, that are still developing that particular skill, that ability to monitor them their own reactions to things.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: And then you put them in front of these technologies that a the the attention economy ⁓ mindset is part of the chat bot design. Yeah. Because well, you know, like when in chat GPT, right? You it no matter what you type in, it always ends every prompt with like three questions. Would you like me to?
speaker-0: Right, yeah.
speaker-1: Continue. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Right. So it's the engagement. Now you're not only dealing with engagement just on the internet, right? That's already, you know, AI driven engagement. And now you maximize it by you throw a an AI on top of it that's now conversational engagement. And you take a conversational engagement that is extraordinarily good at superficial pattern matching.
speaker-0: Engagement. Yeah.
speaker-1: and a lack of critical thinking. Now it it it could be, you know, at that particular if you're fourteen, you know, like the the those you're getting basic critical thinking because your teachers are demonstrating it for you, but you're not you at that particular age, you're not actually sitting in a critical thinking class going over, you know, ⁓ the these various learning heuristics and the and the trouble that we get into, cognitive biases, c you know, et cetera, et cetera. You know, that comes later when they feel like when your intellectual development has advanced to where they feel that you can now start to, you know, bring in these other concepts. Right. But all of that is part of your at least today's understanding. Right. ⁓ my my understanding today is that all of that is part of this metacognitive awareness, right? And then that makes it more difficult to engage with the AI. And now you're having, you know, people that are engaging with AIs to try to understand something, and it's just leading them further down that.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: You know, that unless you know how to test it.
speaker-0: And
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. The the the funny thing is or funny, strange, whatever, is that ⁓ the other day I maybe it was a YouTube, I'm not sure now. But it there ⁓ apparently Google just had their like ⁓ annual developer conference or something. Yeah, IO twenty twenty six or something like that. I don't know, whatever. But apparently Coming out of that The Google the like the Google homepage is no longer like just like it used to be. Now it's AI. It's the Gemini three point five flash.
speaker-0: Yeah, like I noticed that it seems more AI when you try to Google stuff.
speaker-1: Yeah, when you Google anything now, the first thing you're gonna get is the AI answer. Right. And so ⁓ this particular ⁓ thing that I encountered was saying that ⁓ because of that, there's been like a six sixty seven percent drop in click through. Right. So
speaker-0: Actual websites, yeah.
speaker-1: And then the other thing that I thought was hilarious actually, and I mean like funny, like laugh out loud funny, is that ⁓ forty seven percent of the ⁓ citations that it gives in the answers do not support the answer that it gave.
speaker-0: Really?
speaker-1: Yeah. So you type in a query in Google, right? And you get this summary, Gemini 3.5 flash, whatever. Yeah. Right. And now according to this thing that I saw, it said that the answer is correct. Right. So like if you type in a question, you'll get a correct answer, but the sources that it cites, forty seven percent do not support the correct answer. So it's citing sources that do not support the answer that it gave. Right. Now, I have this thing in my own research, you know, when I was trying to not lose my mind in dealing with an AI, and I came up with my own little, you know, framework, one of the things that I called it was premature coherence. I actually, the first thing I called it was thinking prevention.
speaker-0: Cheese.
speaker-1: Exactly. Because I was reading, you know, like when I first hit AI, it was all the AI hype cycle. Like, yay, rah rah, AI, come on, everybody, jump on the train. We're gonna party. Right. That was a lot of what I was reading. And so I'm in there and I'm thinking, ⁓ thinking partner, I could use a thinking partner. And after about two weeks, I said, This is not a thinking partner. If anything, it prevents thinking.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Because you put an idea into it and it immediately packages it up for you. Right. Well, how can I think when you're gonna finish my every single thought for me? Right. And at first I just called it thinking prevention and then it morphed in my head to thinking prevention via what I call premature coherence. You know, it's like it looks good on the surface, right? And even if you lean on it a little bit, yeah, it's all right.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Off you go with it. Right. And then you think about it some more and you lean on it and all of a sudden it falls apart. For coherence. But then I was like, now I'm I'm trying to write that. And it's more complicated than that. You know, because on the one hand, you have what the AI does, what the LLM does. It just it matches patterns. So it says, ⁓ if you take this and this. It'll find a p it'll find some way to match them together because that's what it does. Right. Yeah. And it'll present it in a way that makes it seem, whoa, yeah, this works. Right. And if you're not skeptical of your own thinking, right, you just you buy it. Right. That but it's like they're two different things that at first I thought it was just all one thing. But now it's not. It's like there's what the AI does. And that's pretty a lot of people document that actually. If you go, if you like you try to look online, you'll see a lot of people writing about that. The fact that the AI puts together this sort of prepackaged answer that's wrong. Right. And so I a lot of people notice that. Right. What what I've been struggling with is then why do I see so many medium posts?
speaker-0: Dear.
speaker-1: Why do I see so many Substack articles? Why do I see so many LinkedIn things that aren't that cr that crack when I lean on?
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: It's and then I'm all right, so what happens? Then I started thinking about, all right. I don't I'm not I don't want to ascribe ill intent, you know, to anybody out there, right? Like they're doing this to con people. So they must believe that what they're putting out there accurate, right? That I've thought this through. I've thought this through. So something else has to
speaker-0: Right. Is that Whatever, yeah.
speaker-1: has to be happening. So then there I am going What what happens to you, right? I'm sitting there and I'm typing things in and I fight with the AI all the time, right? Because it's it's taking my half baked idea and you know, amplifying it and I'm like, No, no, no, no, no, I'm not there yet. Right. So I fight with it, fight with it, fight with it. And then after maybe an hour, hour and a half, or maybe longer, I'll get I'll see something on my screen.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: That is that's it. That's what I've been trying to get to. Right. That's my thinking on the matter. Yeah. And I and when I see it on the screen, it's like there's this feeling. And the only the closest I can come, it's probably not accurate, but the closest I can come right now is that I feel seen.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-1: Right. And that's weird because it's a ⁓ it's there's nothing there to see me. But yet I I have this feeling of being seen. And I think that more than anything else is what catches people. I don't know. Right. But it but that it's something like that where you see your own thinking reflected accurately.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Right. It's yes, that's what I'm thinking. And that stops you from well, is what I'm thinking right? Yes, that's what I'm thinking. Right. And I publish it because that's what I'm thinking. But I haven't taken the extra step to say, Okay, now how do I back this up? Right. If I'm boring you, Mark, I mean you know, I saw you were stifling a yawn there.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, no sorry.
speaker-1: I'm teasing. You know, we got smile, left. There you go, there's a smile.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: All right, so I I I I've been rambling for a minute. What did I say that triggered anything in your head?
speaker-0: ⁓ I don't know.
speaker-1: Have you all right, let me ask you this Mark. Have you ever in your interactions with Chat GPT had the feeling that I just described?
speaker-0: Yes, kind of. Well, yeah, but it it's that it it's like yes, that initial feeling is like, ⁓ I am onto something 'cause it'll a lot of times like I'll read a couple books or and then I'll I'll start trying to connect them in my head and stuff and figure out and then I'll think like, ⁓ this is something that I read that seems like connected. And then it's like, ⁓ yeah, no, that's you know, th you're on to something and you know, you're
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And there's that initial reaction that's like, ⁓ wow, you know, actually I am I am sorry. I am so smart or whatever. Like, but then it's kinda like you know, that I think about it for a second, I'm like, I don't know, like it's this thing is just trying to like ⁓ you know, fill my head.
speaker-1: Well, you have the the sarcophancy, right? That everybody comments on that. That you know, that no matter what you say to it, it always ⁓ that's brilliant, you know, ⁓ et cetera, et cetera. And that amplification that it does. Now that's I I I have found that's relatively easy to bracket out. You know, like when I look at their response and I and I see any of that, it's what I call the soft sarcophancy which is the problem. The the softer
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Where it's not an overly, ⁓ that's a brilliant idea, but in in the way that it frames things, it's still stroking your ego. You know, and and I think that's part of what causes this thing that I call premature coherence.
speaker-0: Yeah. Well I think I think actually ultimately the answer in in the I guess if I'm gonna answer your question, the answer is no because it's like I don't feel that way because of the way I look at AI. This that thing that I talked about where it was like ⁓ I feel
speaker-1: All right.
speaker-0: My I think it's partly the way I use it and also the way I look at it, but like that feeling of being seen, it was like yeah, I I guess it's like I kinda had it because this thing, it's like telling me everything that I think. Right. But I'm also like but you're not real.
speaker-1: Right. So I like I said it I said it it may I like I felt seen. And you're saying that it's that you're you're you're describing a similar feeling, but you're not giving it the same word that I'm giving it.
speaker-0: Right.
speaker-1: And what word would you give it?
speaker-0: Well, I guess it's okay. So I'm I feel seen, but I dismiss it immediately, I guess is what I mean. So I guess I do feel it, but it's like it's immediate because like I said, my first thought after I read this thing, because it's like, yeah, no, you're right. The the auto sales is a big giant contradiction because it's like you're supposed to build value, but you also discount it if they're leaving. You're supposed to create urgency, but you also don't want to pressure people. You're supposed to be honest with the customer and also tell them, don't tell them too much. You know. Right, right, right. Right. It's like, so, anyways, it's like initially it's like you're, but then it's like, yeah, I already know this. I told you this. Right. My prompt was basically my prompt was saying, I think the
speaker-1: So Right.
speaker-0: Card business is a contradiction and it's like it's almost like regurgitating. Right, exactly. Yeah. It's a mirror.
speaker-1: Right. It's a mirror. And so you get this reflection back. It confirms you in a way. And you have the metacognitive distance to be able to go, yeah, it's a machine. It's a statistical text generator. It's whatever. You know. And I'm not going to place that much of my emotional.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: you know weight into it. Right. But you're in a you know you're not these other people, right, that are falling into this. Right. And so the question then becomes, well what's happening? Is it, you know, 'cause that's that part of my
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: I'm doing this AI research, not because I want to, because I need to make sure that I don't end up in one of these delusional spirals starting to believe some crazy shit, you know, because I accepted what an AI is telling me. So I just go out and I'm collecting research, right? Or trying to. academic research on how LLMs work and the psychology behind it. Right. And it gets as long as you're I as far as I can tell right now At least for me, I'm not losing myself in it. Right. But, you know, I picked up a c you know, like I keep collecting these papers and depending on which pile of like three or four papers that I choose, there's like a different ⁓ way that you can frame what's happening. But all of it has to do with this, ⁓ the weakening of the ⁓ knowledge that you're dealing that you're not dealing with another human being. It's anthropomorphic. It's the anthropomorphic language that people talk about you know, when people are talking about LLMs, they talk about LLMs thinking and reasoning and having empathy. And they have none of these things. Right. And so, but yet if that's the
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: The let or again, we go to the voice of mother culture now, right? Like if that's the environment that you're living in, like every time you read about an AI, it it's thinking, it's reasoning, right? When you sit down with it, that's just part of the background noise that's influencing the way that you respond to it. So you've developed the metacognitive strategy to
speaker-0: Thank you.
speaker-1: Whenever you sit down at it, you know I'm there's nothing there. It's a machine. It's a so whatever it says to me, even though it might feel good emotionally, right? It's just I'm not attributing anything to it. How do you avoid though? Getting ⁓ How do you avoid not getting trapped into like a loop of like a a mirror, a ha a how a hall of mirrors ⁓ that your mo mind creates because you're just reflecting your own thinking back in a hundred different ways? Like how do you avoid that so that when you build something, if you're thinking something through, I know that you're working through ⁓ your arguments as to why capitalism sucks. Right. So you're working through those arguments. How do you avoid getting trapped where you forget where you're not looking for objections to the thing that you're building?
speaker-0: I don't know. I don't think I do. I mean I don't I think I just stop. Like I just turn it off like yesterday when I did that thing when I just vented at it. Like 'cause if you look, it's funny because the the title of the chat is email polishing assistance. W because I was at work.
speaker-1: Right, right. That was how you started it.
speaker-0: Polish up some emails and then like just something happened at work and I was like, This is stupid. And after I read that sentence that says the we'll take any deal thing would bother me too. I was like, What do you mean, bother you too? And I just turned it off. I actually closed the whole window. Like I was like, Hey, get out of here. Like, fuck off. I'm sorry.
speaker-1: Right. Well no, that that's the actually the right response.
speaker-0: The very last sentence is actually a super like sick sycophantic whatever. That is a system problem. It's not a mark problem. Yeah, I know it's a system problem. But it's just it's trying to like ⁓
speaker-1: Right. But your response by shutting the window, just going, ⁓ you know what? F off. Right. That's the right response. You know, there's ⁓ I've I've seen a couple of ⁓ there's a couple of substacks of people that aren't actually using AI to write their substacks that I follow. ⁓ and one of ⁓ is one of ⁓ a couple of months ago, that was the his the basic ⁓ point of the essay was you get to a point and you just okay, stop. I need to walk away. And ⁓ you know, the funny thing we're we're you know, we're talking about like the internet and the manosphere and the manosphere is a creature of the internet, after all. You know, it it doesn't exist as far as I can tell, ⁓ in just on the street, you know. ⁓
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: But one of the things that you know I was thinking about in in terms of like the just that internet and that constant stimulation that every that we all live in. I I encountered something a couple of weeks ago. They call it the default mode network. DMN. ⁓ in it's neuro ⁓ neurologically. And apparently ⁓ this default mode network
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: is activated when you stop taking in like data. Right? And your brain just has a chance to relax. So that's like the pause kind of thing. And taking time to just let things settle. And I was I was actually trying to f ⁓ write some things down this morning. Cause I think that when you're when that default mode network is activated, that's one of the times that your brain has a chance to sort of exper you know, like make connections and prune things. A a sort of a ⁓ a daytime version of what's supposed allegedly happens during dreaming and sleeping. Right. but
speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ good.
speaker-1: I j like I said, it was just that default mode network was so was a f a formulation that I just encountered a couple of weeks ago. And so I've probably read maybe one or two articles on it, so you know how much I could say that I know is limited. I I been exposed to it and it does seem in at least in my mind to connect to how I feel when I go for a walk.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Or sit on the beach or something like that, you know, where I'm not you know, like I don't have my head I'm not listening to music, I'm not I'm just walking. Right. ⁓ man, talk about being out of shape. You know how I used to go on those nine mile walks? Where are you out? I I went for a two and a half mile walk yesterday, almost didn't make it home. I mean the last like quarter mile or so, I was like, ⁓ yeah, you're out of shape there, kid But now that the weather's nice, I I plan and it's just once around the block here, so It's two and a half miles. So I figure if I did that every day while it's nice, that'll get me back. But that the reason that I mention it now is we're coming up on the end of our hour, is because that that that taking the time just to go walk, to not be plugged in, not my phone. I mean I had my I had my phone in my pocket just to count the steps. Right. 'Cause you know.
speaker-0: Right.
speaker-1: I'm plugged into the internet, I can't help it. But anyway, ⁓ other than that, like no, I didn't have my headphones on, didn't have wasn't listening to music, audio book, nothing, just you know, walk. And it took fifty minutes. So I had an hour of unplugged time for my brain to rest.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: You know, and ⁓ that ties into these other things that ⁓ like on the mental health side of the equation. forest bathing is another one, right? You know, just go sit in the woods for a while.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, capital yeah. It's whatever. Capitalism causes a problem and then tries to sell it back to you.
speaker-1: Well yeah, it ca it creates a problem and then it sells you the solution. Right. All right. I mean we we we create this school system which means all these little kids, these little bundles of energy have to sit right for six hours straight. ⁓ well they can't sit for six hours straight, so we give ⁓ Ritalin.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Right. We'll drug them in order to make them sit there instead of saying, Well, maybe this environment sucks.
speaker-0: Actually we could probably do a whole episode or another episode on that and I know we're at the end, but you just wrote I was reading that the the Mark Fisher, ⁓ Capitalist Realism and well, I was listening to it. ⁓ Part of the issue with listening to the the books is that my brain's all's out 'cause half the time I'm driving. But ⁓ or something happens in front of me that I have to direct my brain attention to. ⁓ besides the just mindless driving that after thirty years of driving, I'm too good. ⁓ but anyways, yeah, he was talking about how you know, there's this rise in ADHD and he kind of, you know, he's not making any like concrete like claim or anything, but it's like, is it probably a result of all of this stuff? Like attention hyper, active disorder, whatever the you know, what is H?
speaker-1: Attention deficit. It's attention deficit hyperactive disorder.
speaker-0: Yeah. So it's like and then you have a hyperactive internet basically that has competing for your attention.
speaker-1: Yeah, well now you you know, you well because if you look like the D I don't know, the DSM five now, I think. The di di ⁓ diagnostic diagnostic and statistical manual for all the your psychiatric things, pathologies. Right. I mean that's you know, that's grown over, you know, the course of the twentieth century.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: And in my mind, a lot of the things that are now considered pathologies are just the normal reaction to being forced to live in abnormal conditions. You know, so we've pathologized normal reactions to abnormal conditions rather than address the conditions that are causing these bad reactions.
speaker-0: Right, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. ⁓ thanks again for joining us on a historic episode forty two, the answer to everything, life, universe, and everything. ⁓
speaker-1: Yeah. Problem is nobody properly understands the question.
speaker-0: question and that's why we're here to ask more questions. ⁓ in the anyways this is episode forty two. Feed the algorithm, you know, the like, the subscribe, comment, wherever you're at, whether it's Spotify or Apple iTunes or wherever you're listening, YouTube,
speaker-1: Neither do we Thanks for joining. Subs
speaker-0: Yeah, hit all the algorithm checkpoints and that will help us out a lot. ⁓ hit up our Patreon. ⁓ we still have no Patreon people, but but once we get some, we will start doing the things that are on there. Technically we don't have a live episode yet, although I think I put that on the Patreon that we do one live episode. ⁓ but we have no
speaker-1: That's fine. I'm going to do that.
speaker-0: I don't know. I just mean live like as in people can watch us right now, like while we're recording. I don't mean live like we're gonna go stand in stage in front of somebody just in case. That's way I don't know. That's the but anyways, thanks again. Occasionally Philosophical. I'm Mark and you're and we'll see you next time.
speaker-1: All right. So speaking of stuff, we were talking a little bit about Well yeah, and I I'm I I remain dug at least I think so for today at least.
speaker-0: Mark. This is ⁓ episode forty two, so we're
speaker-1: The answer to life. The ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything. It is your lucky day because you just tuned in to episode forty two. Thanks a lot for joining, and we'll see you next time. All right, Mark. So we were before we turned the mics on, ⁓ we were ⁓ going over a little bit of ⁓ the news is still it's still floating through the information ⁓ ecosystem that that
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Thoreau or Thoreau d documentary on the Manosphere. right. We were talking about that and how ⁓ You were saying that you had seen something about ⁓ some guy who was actually proud of the fact that he didn't even cry at his his own father's funeral. And how did you feel about that?
speaker-0: Yeah. I I thought it was just crazy 'cause it's like I okay, I get it. I'm a man. I grew up in this whatever, men don't cry. So, you know, even though like you for the most part taught me that it was okay to express my emotions and things like that, I I was still influenced by mother culture and just everything, you know. So
speaker-1: What it's unseemly for a man to cry in public.
speaker-0: Yeah, but it's just like, bro, that's a funeral. Like I I like all the places, like, even in in masculinity, the performance of masculinity, like I think crying at a funeral is acceptable, especially if it's your parents, either one of your parents or, you know, another close ⁓ family member. And it's like Yeah, that's like when it's like that's toxic. See, like, and see, and that's the difference, I think. It's like, I don't know, if you want to say like masculinity is not necessarily you know, stoic and not necessarily showing your emotions all the time. Okay, like whatever. It's it's kind of fine. That could be, you know, performing masculinity, but it's like that being proud, I guess, of like never crying, not even at a really, really sad situation. That's Sh that's obviously toxic. Now, where exactly it crosses over from normal masculinity to toxic masculinity, I'm sure we could talk all day, but I think we could agree that not being proud of not crying at your father's funeral would definitely cross the line into toxic.
speaker-1: Yeah, I you know, no matter what, I mean, and a lot of men have very complicated relationships with their father. Yeah. ⁓ you know, my my father was the absent guy. Yeah never around in my life and you know, and and when he was around it was n not good for me. Right. So but when he died, I felt sad. Right. He's the man who brought me I mean, you know
speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah.
speaker-1: For better or worse, he brought me into this stupid planet. And ⁓ you know, and for better or worse, you know, I have had I have had some fun along the way. So ⁓ you know, and I got, you know, I brought you into the world and we had a decent run so far. So you know, that but that that you know, this idea that men can't be like complete emotional beings, right? And so then you get these stunted men or young men, right, who are either ⁓ getting sucked into this this weird, you know, world that y I try to stay away from. I try not to look into it just because I would rather focus on what what can I do, what can I familiarize myself with and make myself available to, you know, these young men that are, you know, lost. Right? Like, you know, I've over over the last couple of weeks I've mentioned that every once in a while on those YouTube shorts, there's this one young man that comes up and he's just ranting at his little you know, he does the TikTok thing sitting in his car. ⁓ yeah. Well, he did a ⁓ I saw ⁓ Another short of his yesterday where he was he wasn't ranting this time. You know, he like wasn't yelling at the billionaires or whatever. He was basically answering the question like, why are young men radicalized? Right. And he was talk and apparently from the from the the background and hid the fact that he was talking about living in a town of 2,000 people.
speaker-0: Yeah. Right.
speaker-1: I'm assuming it's like Midwest, Kansas, Nebraska, 'cause like the background of him sitting in his car was just like open fields and stuff. And I thought and he's talking about what radicalized him was like going with his father to like a like a town hall or a city council meeting or something like that where they had proposed like free lunch free school lunches for everybody regardless of income. Right? Yeah. And they went to the the city council meeting and there were all these people that were getting up there talking about how that wasn't fair, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the the young man's father got up there and talked about how when he was a young boy
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: He was the one who was getting the free lunch and the shame of having, you know, of having to accept the free lunch. And he ended his little speech in the city council by saying, if anybody's got a problem with the lunches, you can bill me. And he kid talks about his father being like one of those men of the earth, you know, so strong he can be like ⁓ bend horseshoes with his bare hands, you know, kind of thing. So, you know, he's got some respect for his dad.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: But I thought and he says what radicalized him is that the same people that are going to church every Sunday are the same people that are complaining about giving f meals to kids that need it. And that's what radicalized him. Right. It's not the fact it's not any of this other stuff. It's the fact that you're going to church, right? And he goes to church. I mean, obviously, right? Every Sunday kind of thing. And all those people are there, yet
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: He's reading his Bible and he's hearing what the preacher is saying and the the same people that are sitting in the seats next to him are the ones that are saying, No, don't give free meals to kids.
speaker-0: Yeah. I mean one of the the I don't know, I mean to me it was one of the more famous or more standout stories in the the Chronicles of Jesus, ⁓ was when he you know, the sh the fish and the bread, when he
speaker-1: Well yeah, the the what is it? Loaves and fishes. There was only like a couple of fish and a couple of loaves of bread, but yet he fed everybody there.
speaker-0: Yeah. You know, now obviously that was some form of miracle magic, you know, being able to divide that. But then you could also be like, I don't know, maybe everybody just got like a little thin slice. Like what was that ⁓ what was that old Disney cartoon where the Mickey was like slicing the the I forgot, was that the Christmas Carol? ⁓ whatever, anyways. They had the bread and him and Donald and I think Goofy was there and he sliced it like so thin you could like see through the bread.
speaker-1: Well, ⁓ what I ⁓ one of the versions of the story that I heard, which I thought was interesting, was like, ⁓ all these people gathered around the riverbank or whatever to hear Jesus speak, right? Yeah. And you know, and they're okay, they got the basket and there's like however many loaves and however many fishes, I forget the numbers. But it was like as they started like to to feed, ever all the people started reaching into their own little bags. Right. And grabbing a handful of ri you know, whatever they had. And suddenly, you know, yeah, two loaves and, you know, five fishes or whatever it is becomes everybody eats because everybody brought a little ⁓ added it to.
speaker-0: The The act of the initial act of
speaker-1: The initial act of sharing was enough to get everybody else to reach into their pocket and take what little they had.
speaker-0: Right.
speaker-1: Now I don't know, you know, that's just one of those things. You're wandering along the internet, you read a blog post and somebody says, you know, offers that version of the story, you know.
speaker-0: Yeah. So but yeah, but I mean back to the the radicalization. You have this story of Jesus feeding everybody or try attempting to, you know, and then it's like you're voting against free lunch.
speaker-1: Yeah. And why would you vote against the free launch?
speaker-0: Right. It's I mean
speaker-1: I mean I can I I can understand like people are going, Well, that's coming out of our taxes and if you're giving free lunches to the kids that don't need a free lunch, you're wasting our money. Well, by giving every kid a free lunch, we're not shaming anyone.
speaker-0: It does a stigma. Yeah.
speaker-1: Yeah, we're not stigmatizing everyone. All the kids come in, they all get a free lunch. Nobody has to feel like they have to hide their head. You know, it's like it's like going to the going to the store with your ⁓ what is it, EBT card? Right?
speaker-0: Yeah, right. There's a stigma attached to it.
speaker-1: There's stigma attached to it, you know? 'Cause you ⁓ you're on food stamp.
speaker-0: Yeah, and I seem to remember Like like when I was in high school, there was like the cafeteria and there was like the the food where, you know, you go, you have your money and like you could pick. Like we they used to have like Taco Bell burritos and like Subway sandwiches and shit, stuff like that. ⁓ you know, it was like not like you could just get whatever. It was just like they had a turkey sandwich from Subway, like pre wrapped and everything or whatever and they Like bean and cheese burritos from Taco Bell. ⁓ but there was like another line that was like the school lunch, which that was like separate. So it's like everybody knew, like, you know, you ate over there. Like that's the free lunch line or the two dollar lunch, or but, you know, back when I was a, you know, kid, it was, I don't know, it was cheap. I I remember you used to give me like $20 on Monday, and that would sort of last me the whole week. Depending on how well I budgeted my lunch money.
speaker-1: Now that's not enough to get you through a day.
speaker-0: Yeah. Well I I like I remember like we used to be able to get like the little thing of fries for like a like a dollar. Mm-hmm. Like a side of fries like at at break time or whatever for like a dollar. But anyways how does this and how does the how did that connect to the manosperit w or the rag radicalism?
speaker-1: Well, the radicalization. Right. You get radicalized, right? You're angry. You're angry, you know, like the and these are Gen Z, you know. I mean that young that particular young man who I saw, you know, Gen obviously Gen Z, and they're angry, right? Now, d do they get sucked into that thing out of anger or do they end up somewhere else? Right. But You know, like this this idea that you know, we're we're hating on everyone. And like I said, yeah, I I I mentioned that I saw that one ⁓ that one podcast, it was like a two hour discussion with ⁓ two men, two women, and the theme and the the title of the podcast was Why Do Women Hate Men? And I'm like, Well, gee, you know, throw a little gas on the fire, why don't you? Right? You know, you're a young man and all you're hearing is how Women hate men. No, they don't. I I don't think, you know, or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they do, you know. I
speaker-0: Well I think it think stuff like that, ⁓ it's it's we kind of touched on it the other day when we were chatting, but like There's the world is complicated. ⁓ everything has nuance. Are there are there probably a lot of people, women that hate men, men that hate women, all the yes, there ⁓ there's a lot, right? But once you the problem is is like it it's like that simplicity of all women hate men. That's simple. It's a simple concept for somebody to wrap their head around. Right. So in in the internet, like that's what flies. Like everybody they latch on to that simple stuff, you know. So it's it's like, yeah, maybe in this two hour conversation, right? They're I don't know. I don't know what podcast it is. I didn't listen to it, so I can't but it just maybe during this two hour conversation they were having a very nuanced discussion. about the relationship between men and women and misogynistic men and how that affects women and the patriarchy and all these various things, right? Because it is a very complicated and delicate topic. Is there a problem with misogyny? Of course. Yes, there is. You know, is it all men? No. You know, but it's like you start getting, you know, but that's the problem. It's like as soon as with anything, it's ⁓ whether it's racism, sexism, Whatever is
speaker-1: Yeah, ableism, whatever.
speaker-0: You start once you start painting everybody with a broad brush in any group. You're gonna run into problems because that thing we say all the time, it's like you're gonna run into reality. Reality's gonna be your theory, you know. And it's gonna lose because it's like, yeah, all women hate men. Okay, how am I married? Right? Like it's obviously some women, a lot of men are married, you know what I mean? And it's like all anytime you say all XRX or all X R Y. It's just you're gonna run into problems. But that's part of like that's the engagement. Like it's like they do it all. Right. It's that's the engagement part. Because like I said, they might have had a very nuanced conversation to what?
speaker-1: So the attention economy. It wasn't as you know, black and white as the title of the title. Now you're you're familiar with the guy. ⁓ what is his name? Chris ⁓ Chris Williamson, Modern Wisdom. Anyway, if you if you look up mod if you go to YouTube and you look up the Modern Wisdom podcast, ⁓ you can find the it's a it's like a two hour thing. You're not gonna have time to to watch it because I know your schedule. ⁓ but ⁓ you can you can get ⁓ you could even just scan the transcript and get a sense for what because like the the two women that were on there were talking about the conflicting messages that women get. So On the one hand you have the the liberated, you know, go, you know, be a lawyer, be a CEO, you know, do your thing, right? You don't need you don't need a man to, you know, carry you and all that kind of stuff. There's that, right? The empowered woman. And apparently, at least according to these two young women that were on the podcast ⁓ with Chris, ⁓ That particular cohort, at least for young women, is more exemplified by ⁓ what what's her name? Hermione ⁓ Emma Watson, the actress. Yeah, was it Emma Watson who played Hermione Granger? Yeah, yeah. But anyway, like so that particular cohort of young women are sort of in that ⁓ Emma Watson as an influencer, you know, ⁓ thing. Okay. And then you have this other cohort. of young women that are more ⁓ traditionalists, you know, like the Judeo Christian, you know, sort of stay at home mom. Trad wife, I think they call it. But that's like the extreme edge. Like the trad wife is the extreme edge of that, you know, more ⁓ traditional. You're a young woman, you make yourself make yourself a, you know, you study the things that will enable you to be a good
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: homem maker, right, and support for ⁓ your husband so that he can be successful. In that behind every great man is a woman thing, right? That we you know that I used to hear growing up. You know, it was, you know, because like that was the thing of the patriarchy, right? Was that the man was out there doing all the stuff and he was supported by the woman. Yeah. The woman took care of all the things that ⁓ need to be done but that would occupy too much of the brain power that would then you know could then you know that the man has the brain power to solve the problems of the world where the woman has the brain power to solve the problems of the home. Right. Right. Now you can take that sexist thing and punt it, you know, into another universe. But that's the you know, that was the attitudes that underlied that, at least as far as I've been able to work out, right? So now you have you have like young women that are trying to navigate, well, how am I supposed to be? Like what role or how am I supposed to be in the world, right, that's going to be meaningful to me, that's going to give me the kind of life that I want to have. Right. And now they're out there with all these competing stories. Meanwhile, the one they're If they're heterosexual women, right, they're looking for a ⁓ a mate, right? But now, all right, but now you've got the fear factor that comes into play, right? Because if you're on if you're on the one track, if you're a woman on the one track, like the liberated take care of myself, well, what kind of man do you want? You want a man who takes care of himself. You want the man who's out there who's not taking no for an answer, who's being successful, right? Because that's you. You don't want like if you're that kind of woman, the the young man who's more than who's perfectly content to have a six pack, a blunt, and his controller.
speaker-0: Yeah. working at a warehouse job or
speaker-1: Yeah, we're working at a warehouse job or whatever it is. Right. You're in you're, you know, but if you're if you're that guy and your image of the kind of woman that you that should be with you is this driven, you know, successful, you know, going to the gym, right? You know, woman, you're gonna be disappointed because she's gonna look right over your head. She's not even gonna see you. Right.
speaker-0: Like you are.
speaker-1: But then you're sitting there going, but now you're a young man and you're being told that you need to go to college, you need to be in good shape, you need to do all this stuff. And you do all that stuff and guess what? You can't get a job. And you end up working at a warehouse. Right. You got your college degree, you got two hundred thousand dollars worth of debt that you're never gonna be able to pay off. Right. And or you're jumping from one entry level position to another with your business degree.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: But you keep getting laid off because all these companies are rolling out their AI things. You're studying AI, trying to keep up. But every time you get a leg up, they just cut some more jobs. Now, on the other ⁓ the good news is that I did see ⁓ the other day that companies are starting to hire people back. Okay. Because the AI thing ain't really working out all that good.
speaker-0: Yeah. It all started.
speaker-1: Imagine that. You know, statistical text generation to you know to ⁓ replace your employees.
speaker-0: I don't know. It just kinda like I feel like AI is probably the same thing as most like, yeah, we have all these, you know, over the course, you know, of human history and even more so in the last, I don't know, hundred years, you know, technology keeps advancing, right? We keep getting more and more tools and machines and robots and what have you. But like ultimately, like there's always needs to be like a person. There needs to be some human there. Like, for example, self-checkout. Yeah, I'm doing all the work. This robot is helping me check out my groceries, but like I still need a human intervention when this thing messes up, which it will.
speaker-1: Well all right, here's the thing.
speaker-0: Yeah. So that's what I mean. Like, yeah, you might be able to like with AI, they might be able to like limit jobs. You know, for example, in my analogy with the self checkout, it's like you'll have six self checkouts in one person manning all six of ⁓ or ten of them.
speaker-1: 'Cause that one the one person has the little card. And so, you know, like I I'm an old man now, so I'm always going through the ⁓ day old stuff, you know, the you know so I can get the special, right? And you know, now you you grab some meal that you know, pre pre made meal that's on sale for fifty percent off. Right. And so you take it over, you take it to the self checkout, you scan it, and then you put it on the thing.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: And then the thing's spinning around going checking weight, checking weight. And then the guy has to come over, scan his little thing, hit the button, and you you move on. Right. So the human in the loop thing all the time. But, you know, my my particular thing, living alone, being old, and I'm the I'm the one of the target markets, right, for AI companions. And my experience with these things is like, ⁓
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-1: You can take those things and put ⁓ on a rocket and send it to Jupiter. You know, as far as like a companion, i it it's there is nothing there to relate to.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Right. So like that that thing just flies out the window, right? And the fact that it can't maintain context. See, you and I have been talking for roughly forty years, right? Forty two. Once you started having language when you were around two or three years old, we've been talking, right? You know me.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: You have a picture of me. I don't have to remind you of something that I told you fifteen years ago most of the time.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: But with ⁓ with these chatbots I can have a two hour conversation on like a paper or a c a collection of papers because I'm trying to figure something out. And then two days later, after having thought about it for a while, you know, sit back down at the same chat bot, not a different chat bot, the same one. Yeah. And bring up that thing and it has absolutely no fucking idea what we were talking about. You know, like what and see what we, right? Anthropomorphic language. It's me typing into a prompt window, getting something that looks like human communication back out.
speaker-0: Yeah. Right.
speaker-1: But you know, there ain't nothing there to relate to. There ain't you know, and then you were saying ⁓ something before we hit the record thing that you were you were frustrated at work and so you had ⁓ your chat GPT and you just vented at it for a minute, like, get this shit out of my head, right, so I can get back to work. And chat GPT is coming back with I understand how you feel, and you and what was your reaction?
speaker-0: Well no, what it it said ⁓ it's what it sa it didn't say I well it did say I understand how you feel, but that wasn't what what caught my attention. It was said it said I would feel the same way. And I was like, What do you mean I?
speaker-1: Yeah. You're who are you?
speaker-0: Right. Like you're you're not a consciousness in the way that we understand consciousness. So there is no I there. So I don't know. So but it's it's we've touched on this a lot, and I know we're I feel like we're kind of moving off of the male, whatever we were talking about, but whatever. But it it's I see how it can happen. Like I Get like the AI, like I understand how people could be sucked in and and confused and convinced by it. But it's like it's probably part of it is a result of all these conversations that we've had about it. But it's like those things where it's as soon as it starts acting like I almost prefer like like we I've mentioned it a bunch of times. It's like I I j I started using it because I didn't like the email templates that I had at my job that I would send out to clients. And so I was like, Hey, maybe I can use this to like spice ⁓ up or maybe, you know, whatever. And so initially it's, you know, when I'm doing that type of stuff, it doesn't really do the ⁓ I know how you feel, type of stuff. Like, ⁓ it wants me to re ⁓ the the you know, they they want me to redo the email. All right, and just redoes it. But that thing where like I was just kind of like got annoyed with my job and just kind of I didn't even ask it for anything. I just was like, let me just let this out because if not, I'm gonna be
speaker-1: Right, right.
speaker-0: cursing at my boss or whatever. It's not gonna be a good look. So let me just curse at Chat GPT. Yeah. You know. And like I had mentioned something else about it too that I noticed when it was like I'm brainstorming like these ideas. And it's giving me ideas that I could like try to, you know, flesh out more. And then later on in the conversation, it's telling me that that idea that it gave me was my idea. It wasn't a idea.
speaker-1: Well, I w I I don't know if you recall, but like ⁓ when I was using ⁓ the LLMs badly, I was ⁓ trying to get them to do something that they're not really good to do. Yeah. One of the things that I noticed would be like, well, I was trying to update a ⁓ a block of ⁓ code in in an Excel spreadsheet ⁓ for ⁓ Power Query. And the L LM generated the code. I pasted it in, I ran it, there was an error. So I go, okay, there's an error. And I s and I I give the error back to the LLM. And the LLM's response is, ⁓ I see what you did. I'm like, I didn't write that code. You did. Right? It's the gaslighting thing. Right. Right. Well, and then remember when Charlie Kirk got got murdered. Right?
speaker-0: Yeah. Right.
speaker-1: It was like the day after that it happened, right? And because it was new, obviously the training data's not updated with it because it just happened the day before. Right. So when I first, you know, typed it in about what drives people to murder like that, you know, like I mean I didn't think I didn't think he was saying anything worth listening to, but you know, you didn't need to kill him. Yeah, just ignore him, right? Kind of thing. That was my question.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: basically like what drives people to do that. And, you know, it claim ⁓ well, no, you know, Charlie Kirk. And I said, well, no, go ahead and look. Right. And I gave it a link to like an ABC News website. It confirmed it. ⁓ yeah, absolutely. And then when I started talk when I went back to the radicalization thing, like what causes, like trying to trace that All of a sudden, now I'm getting, you know, Chat GPT or Claude, I think it was Claude, was now telling me that actually Charlie Kirk was still alive and that it was giving me a media literacy lesson.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Wait, you j I just sent you two, a CNN link and an ABC News link. Right. These are legitimate not spam sites, you know. The a actual ABC News, actual CNN, Charlie Kirk murdered. And you confirmed it. You went to the website, you confirmed it. And now two turns later, you're telling me that those websites were scams and that I need to be more discerning.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: And I'm like ⁓ that you know, that was one of my ⁓ exper well now I'm only a couple of months into using these LLMs, so I knew right then and there that I couldn't trust these things. Right. And my experience since then just reinforces that over and over and over again. And so now you circle back around to our hey, how did we get to the how do we get leave the manosphere? Well, we're right back again. Right? Because people are going to these chatbots now.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: And you look at the statistics, like the number of teens, right, that are using these chatbots is is astronomical, right? And so now they're going in. So maybe I'm, you know, I'm little Tommy over here and ⁓ you know, I I start to see some of those videos, right? That that pipeline that leads you down to that, you know, the toxic end of that that tunnel. And I go to my chat bot. Right. And my sycophantic chat bot is now, you know, telling me that my insecurities, you know, are justified and that, you know, and and I'm building this thing in this chat bot now. So now I've got this bad information that I'm getting from say YouTube or whatever, Instagram, TikTok, whatever. And now I'm trying to verify it in a chat bot.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Right. And I don't know how to use it. Right. Right. And you know, like in my own research, that's why my LinkedIn series is called Metacognitive Awareness and Other Fairy Tales. Right. It's because no matter what w no matter where you go as far as like ⁓ protecting yourself, protecting your cognitive integrity when you're using an AI, it's like, ⁓ you got metacognitive awareness. You got you know, pay attention to your own thinking. All right. Well that's fine, but that's not a skill that's fully developed at fourteen. Right. It's something that even you are still developing that that ability. It's just it's a lifelong process.
speaker-0: Yeah. Because I don't think it really comes naturally. And if don't if you're not consciously if you're not consciously trying to do it, it you're never gonna just do it, I don't think.
speaker-1: Well part of it is like your parents are or you know, like your parents and and other adult role models when you're kids are modeling some of it for you. Right. In other words, you know, you're upset. Well they're asking you well, do you know why you're upset? Right. Right. That's part of the metacognitives. You know, ⁓ well I'm upset because right. Or now and then you get later it's you're thinking about your thinking. You're thinking about how do you learn best. You're thinking about when do you learn best? Under what conditions? Do you need noise? Do you need music in your ears? You do you need dead quiet? Yeah. You know, like in these kinds of things. You know, and then it's also monitoring what's going on with you emotionally and intellectually as this stuff is happening, right? You know, like ⁓ we've we've touched on how you feel. when you're scrolling through, say TikTok, right? All right, you're out there grub hubbing, right? You're trying to make a few extra bucks and you're bored. Right. Because there's no order. ⁓ you're sitting there in your car in a parking lot somewhere near a restaurant and you go, okay, TikTok. You know, you'll scroll through your phone, right? You don't want to really get into anything. You don't want to start listening to marks, right? Because it's, you know, I think you're right. That's that requires some attention, you know. So it's like, you know what, TikTok is mindless. I'll just scroll through it.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-1: But are you paying attention to how you feel? Right. When you see something. Right. Am I does that make me angry? Does that make me want to repla you know, that's all part of this metacognitive awareness. Right. So that when you go when you sit down in front of Chat GPT or Claude or Gemini or Grok or whatever, are you bringing that same skill so that when you see something on your screen?
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: that you're do I feel validated by that? If I feel validated, I should probably pause and and look a little bit closer. Right. You know, kind of thing. And then ⁓ right. So these you know, you have young people, young men, young women, that are still developing that particular skill, that ability to monitor them their own reactions to things.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: And then you put them in front of these technologies that a the the attention economy ⁓ mindset is part of the chat bot design. Yeah. Because well, you know, like when in chat GPT, right? You it no matter what you type in, it always ends every prompt with like three questions. Would you like me to?
speaker-0: Right, yeah.
speaker-1: Continue. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Right. So it's the engagement. Now you're not only dealing with engagement just on the internet, right? That's already, you know, AI driven engagement. And now you maximize it by you throw a an AI on top of it that's now conversational engagement. And you take a conversational engagement that is extraordinarily good at superficial pattern matching.
speaker-0: Engagement. Yeah.
speaker-1: and a lack of critical thinking. Now it it it could be, you know, at that particular if you're fourteen, you know, like the the those you're getting basic critical thinking because your teachers are demonstrating it for you, but you're not you at that particular age, you're not actually sitting in a critical thinking class going over, you know, ⁓ the these various learning heuristics and the and the trouble that we get into, cognitive biases, c you know, et cetera, et cetera. You know, that comes later when they feel like when your intellectual development has advanced to where they feel that you can now start to, you know, bring in these other concepts. Right. But all of that is part of your at least today's understanding. Right. ⁓ my my understanding today is that all of that is part of this metacognitive awareness, right? And then that makes it more difficult to engage with the AI. And now you're having, you know, people that are engaging with AIs to try to understand something, and it's just leading them further down that.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: You know, that unless you know how to test it.
speaker-0: And
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. The the the funny thing is or funny, strange, whatever, is that ⁓ the other day I maybe it was a YouTube, I'm not sure now. But it there ⁓ apparently Google just had their like ⁓ annual developer conference or something. Yeah, IO twenty twenty six or something like that. I don't know, whatever. But apparently Coming out of that The Google the like the Google homepage is no longer like just like it used to be. Now it's AI. It's the Gemini three point five flash.
speaker-0: Yeah, like I noticed that it seems more AI when you try to Google stuff.
speaker-1: Yeah, when you Google anything now, the first thing you're gonna get is the AI answer. Right. And so ⁓ this particular ⁓ thing that I encountered was saying that ⁓ because of that, there's been like a six sixty seven percent drop in click through. Right. So
speaker-0: Actual websites, yeah.
speaker-1: And then the other thing that I thought was hilarious actually, and I mean like funny, like laugh out loud funny, is that ⁓ forty seven percent of the ⁓ citations that it gives in the answers do not support the answer that it gave.
speaker-0: Really?
speaker-1: Yeah. So you type in a query in Google, right? And you get this summary, Gemini 3.5 flash, whatever. Yeah. Right. And now according to this thing that I saw, it said that the answer is correct. Right. So like if you type in a question, you'll get a correct answer, but the sources that it cites, forty seven percent do not support the correct answer. So it's citing sources that do not support the answer that it gave. Right. Now, I have this thing in my own research, you know, when I was trying to not lose my mind in dealing with an AI, and I came up with my own little, you know, framework, one of the things that I called it was premature coherence. I actually, the first thing I called it was thinking prevention.
speaker-0: Cheese.
speaker-1: Exactly. Because I was reading, you know, like when I first hit AI, it was all the AI hype cycle. Like, yay, rah rah, AI, come on, everybody, jump on the train. We're gonna party. Right. That was a lot of what I was reading. And so I'm in there and I'm thinking, ⁓ thinking partner, I could use a thinking partner. And after about two weeks, I said, This is not a thinking partner. If anything, it prevents thinking.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Because you put an idea into it and it immediately packages it up for you. Right. Well, how can I think when you're gonna finish my every single thought for me? Right. And at first I just called it thinking prevention and then it morphed in my head to thinking prevention via what I call premature coherence. You know, it's like it looks good on the surface, right? And even if you lean on it a little bit, yeah, it's all right.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Off you go with it. Right. And then you think about it some more and you lean on it and all of a sudden it falls apart. For coherence. But then I was like, now I'm I'm trying to write that. And it's more complicated than that. You know, because on the one hand, you have what the AI does, what the LLM does. It just it matches patterns. So it says, ⁓ if you take this and this. It'll find a p it'll find some way to match them together because that's what it does. Right. Yeah. And it'll present it in a way that makes it seem, whoa, yeah, this works. Right. And if you're not skeptical of your own thinking, right, you just you buy it. Right. That but it's like they're two different things that at first I thought it was just all one thing. But now it's not. It's like there's what the AI does. And that's pretty a lot of people document that actually. If you go, if you like you try to look online, you'll see a lot of people writing about that. The fact that the AI puts together this sort of prepackaged answer that's wrong. Right. And so I a lot of people notice that. Right. What what I've been struggling with is then why do I see so many medium posts?
speaker-0: Dear.
speaker-1: Why do I see so many Substack articles? Why do I see so many LinkedIn things that aren't that cr that crack when I lean on?
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: It's and then I'm all right, so what happens? Then I started thinking about, all right. I don't I'm not I don't want to ascribe ill intent, you know, to anybody out there, right? Like they're doing this to con people. So they must believe that what they're putting out there accurate, right? That I've thought this through. I've thought this through. So something else has to
speaker-0: Right. Is that Whatever, yeah.
speaker-1: has to be happening. So then there I am going What what happens to you, right? I'm sitting there and I'm typing things in and I fight with the AI all the time, right? Because it's it's taking my half baked idea and you know, amplifying it and I'm like, No, no, no, no, no, I'm not there yet. Right. So I fight with it, fight with it, fight with it. And then after maybe an hour, hour and a half, or maybe longer, I'll get I'll see something on my screen.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: That is that's it. That's what I've been trying to get to. Right. That's my thinking on the matter. Yeah. And I and when I see it on the screen, it's like there's this feeling. And the only the closest I can come, it's probably not accurate, but the closest I can come right now is that I feel seen.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-1: Right. And that's weird because it's a ⁓ it's there's nothing there to see me. But yet I I have this feeling of being seen. And I think that more than anything else is what catches people. I don't know. Right. But it but that it's something like that where you see your own thinking reflected accurately.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Right. It's yes, that's what I'm thinking. And that stops you from well, is what I'm thinking right? Yes, that's what I'm thinking. Right. And I publish it because that's what I'm thinking. But I haven't taken the extra step to say, Okay, now how do I back this up? Right. If I'm boring you, Mark, I mean you know, I saw you were stifling a yawn there.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, no sorry.
speaker-1: I'm teasing. You know, we got smile, left. There you go, there's a smile.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: All right, so I I I I've been rambling for a minute. What did I say that triggered anything in your head?
speaker-0: ⁓ I don't know.
speaker-1: Have you all right, let me ask you this Mark. Have you ever in your interactions with Chat GPT had the feeling that I just described?
speaker-0: Yes, kind of. Well, yeah, but it it's that it it's like yes, that initial feeling is like, ⁓ I am onto something 'cause it'll a lot of times like I'll read a couple books or and then I'll I'll start trying to connect them in my head and stuff and figure out and then I'll think like, ⁓ this is something that I read that seems like connected. And then it's like, ⁓ yeah, no, that's you know, th you're on to something and you know, you're
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And there's that initial reaction that's like, ⁓ wow, you know, actually I am I am sorry. I am so smart or whatever. Like, but then it's kinda like you know, that I think about it for a second, I'm like, I don't know, like it's this thing is just trying to like ⁓ you know, fill my head.
speaker-1: Well, you have the the sarcophancy, right? That everybody comments on that. That you know, that no matter what you say to it, it always ⁓ that's brilliant, you know, ⁓ et cetera, et cetera. And that amplification that it does. Now that's I I I have found that's relatively easy to bracket out. You know, like when I look at their response and I and I see any of that, it's what I call the soft sarcophancy which is the problem. The the softer
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Where it's not an overly, ⁓ that's a brilliant idea, but in in the way that it frames things, it's still stroking your ego. You know, and and I think that's part of what causes this thing that I call premature coherence.
speaker-0: Yeah. Well I think I think actually ultimately the answer in in the I guess if I'm gonna answer your question, the answer is no because it's like I don't feel that way because of the way I look at AI. This that thing that I talked about where it was like ⁓ I feel
speaker-1: All right.
speaker-0: My I think it's partly the way I use it and also the way I look at it, but like that feeling of being seen, it was like yeah, I I guess it's like I kinda had it because this thing, it's like telling me everything that I think. Right. But I'm also like but you're not real.
speaker-1: Right. So I like I said it I said it it may I like I felt seen. And you're saying that it's that you're you're you're describing a similar feeling, but you're not giving it the same word that I'm giving it.
speaker-0: Right.
speaker-1: And what word would you give it?
speaker-0: Well, I guess it's okay. So I'm I feel seen, but I dismiss it immediately, I guess is what I mean. So I guess I do feel it, but it's like it's immediate because like I said, my first thought after I read this thing, because it's like, yeah, no, you're right. The the auto sales is a big giant contradiction because it's like you're supposed to build value, but you also discount it if they're leaving. You're supposed to create urgency, but you also don't want to pressure people. You're supposed to be honest with the customer and also tell them, don't tell them too much. You know. Right, right, right. Right. It's like, so, anyways, it's like initially it's like you're, but then it's like, yeah, I already know this. I told you this. Right. My prompt was basically my prompt was saying, I think the
speaker-1: So Right.
speaker-0: Card business is a contradiction and it's like it's almost like regurgitating. Right, exactly. Yeah. It's a mirror.
speaker-1: Right. It's a mirror. And so you get this reflection back. It confirms you in a way. And you have the metacognitive distance to be able to go, yeah, it's a machine. It's a statistical text generator. It's whatever. You know. And I'm not going to place that much of my emotional.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: you know weight into it. Right. But you're in a you know you're not these other people, right, that are falling into this. Right. And so the question then becomes, well what's happening? Is it, you know, 'cause that's that part of my
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: I'm doing this AI research, not because I want to, because I need to make sure that I don't end up in one of these delusional spirals starting to believe some crazy shit, you know, because I accepted what an AI is telling me. So I just go out and I'm collecting research, right? Or trying to. academic research on how LLMs work and the psychology behind it. Right. And it gets as long as you're I as far as I can tell right now At least for me, I'm not losing myself in it. Right. But, you know, I picked up a c you know, like I keep collecting these papers and depending on which pile of like three or four papers that I choose, there's like a different ⁓ way that you can frame what's happening. But all of it has to do with this, ⁓ the weakening of the ⁓ knowledge that you're dealing that you're not dealing with another human being. It's anthropomorphic. It's the anthropomorphic language that people talk about you know, when people are talking about LLMs, they talk about LLMs thinking and reasoning and having empathy. And they have none of these things. Right. And so, but yet if that's the
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: The let or again, we go to the voice of mother culture now, right? Like if that's the environment that you're living in, like every time you read about an AI, it it's thinking, it's reasoning, right? When you sit down with it, that's just part of the background noise that's influencing the way that you respond to it. So you've developed the metacognitive strategy to
speaker-0: Thank you.
speaker-1: Whenever you sit down at it, you know I'm there's nothing there. It's a machine. It's a so whatever it says to me, even though it might feel good emotionally, right? It's just I'm not attributing anything to it. How do you avoid though? Getting ⁓ How do you avoid not getting trapped into like a loop of like a a mirror, a ha a how a hall of mirrors ⁓ that your mo mind creates because you're just reflecting your own thinking back in a hundred different ways? Like how do you avoid that so that when you build something, if you're thinking something through, I know that you're working through ⁓ your arguments as to why capitalism sucks. Right. So you're working through those arguments. How do you avoid getting trapped where you forget where you're not looking for objections to the thing that you're building?
speaker-0: I don't know. I don't think I do. I mean I don't I think I just stop. Like I just turn it off like yesterday when I did that thing when I just vented at it. Like 'cause if you look, it's funny because the the title of the chat is email polishing assistance. W because I was at work.
speaker-1: Right, right. That was how you started it.
speaker-0: Polish up some emails and then like just something happened at work and I was like, This is stupid. And after I read that sentence that says the we'll take any deal thing would bother me too. I was like, What do you mean, bother you too? And I just turned it off. I actually closed the whole window. Like I was like, Hey, get out of here. Like, fuck off. I'm sorry.
speaker-1: Right. Well no, that that's the actually the right response.
speaker-0: The very last sentence is actually a super like sick sycophantic whatever. That is a system problem. It's not a mark problem. Yeah, I know it's a system problem. But it's just it's trying to like ⁓
speaker-1: Right. But your response by shutting the window, just going, ⁓ you know what? F off. Right. That's the right response. You know, there's ⁓ I've I've seen a couple of ⁓ there's a couple of substacks of people that aren't actually using AI to write their substacks that I follow. ⁓ and one of ⁓ is one of ⁓ a couple of months ago, that was the his the basic ⁓ point of the essay was you get to a point and you just okay, stop. I need to walk away. And ⁓ you know, the funny thing we're we're you know, we're talking about like the internet and the manosphere and the manosphere is a creature of the internet, after all. You know, it it doesn't exist as far as I can tell, ⁓ in just on the street, you know. ⁓
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: But one of the things that you know I was thinking about in in terms of like the just that internet and that constant stimulation that every that we all live in. I I encountered something a couple of weeks ago. They call it the default mode network. DMN. ⁓ in it's neuro ⁓ neurologically. And apparently ⁓ this default mode network
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: is activated when you stop taking in like data. Right? And your brain just has a chance to relax. So that's like the pause kind of thing. And taking time to just let things settle. And I was I was actually trying to f ⁓ write some things down this morning. Cause I think that when you're when that default mode network is activated, that's one of the times that your brain has a chance to sort of exper you know, like make connections and prune things. A a sort of a ⁓ a daytime version of what's supposed allegedly happens during dreaming and sleeping. Right. but
speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ good.
speaker-1: I j like I said, it was just that default mode network was so was a f a formulation that I just encountered a couple of weeks ago. And so I've probably read maybe one or two articles on it, so you know how much I could say that I know is limited. I I been exposed to it and it does seem in at least in my mind to connect to how I feel when I go for a walk.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Or sit on the beach or something like that, you know, where I'm not you know, like I don't have my head I'm not listening to music, I'm not I'm just walking. Right. ⁓ man, talk about being out of shape. You know how I used to go on those nine mile walks? Where are you out? I I went for a two and a half mile walk yesterday, almost didn't make it home. I mean the last like quarter mile or so, I was like, ⁓ yeah, you're out of shape there, kid But now that the weather's nice, I I plan and it's just once around the block here, so It's two and a half miles. So I figure if I did that every day while it's nice, that'll get me back. But that the reason that I mention it now is we're coming up on the end of our hour, is because that that that taking the time just to go walk, to not be plugged in, not my phone. I mean I had my I had my phone in my pocket just to count the steps. Right. 'Cause you know.
speaker-0: Right.
speaker-1: I'm plugged into the internet, I can't help it. But anyway, ⁓ other than that, like no, I didn't have my headphones on, didn't have wasn't listening to music, audio book, nothing, just you know, walk. And it took fifty minutes. So I had an hour of unplugged time for my brain to rest.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: You know, and ⁓ that ties into these other things that ⁓ like on the mental health side of the equation. forest bathing is another one, right? You know, just go sit in the woods for a while.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, capital yeah. It's whatever. Capitalism causes a problem and then tries to sell it back to you.
speaker-1: Well yeah, it ca it creates a problem and then it sells you the solution. Right. All right. I mean we we we create this school system which means all these little kids, these little bundles of energy have to sit right for six hours straight. ⁓ well they can't sit for six hours straight, so we give ⁓ Ritalin.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Right. We'll drug them in order to make them sit there instead of saying, Well, maybe this environment sucks.
speaker-0: Actually we could probably do a whole episode or another episode on that and I know we're at the end, but you just wrote I was reading that the the Mark Fisher, ⁓ Capitalist Realism and well, I was listening to it. ⁓ Part of the issue with listening to the the books is that my brain's all's out 'cause half the time I'm driving. But ⁓ or something happens in front of me that I have to direct my brain attention to. ⁓ besides the just mindless driving that after thirty years of driving, I'm too good. ⁓ but anyways, yeah, he was talking about how you know, there's this rise in ADHD and he kind of, you know, he's not making any like concrete like claim or anything, but it's like, is it probably a result of all of this stuff? Like attention hyper, active disorder, whatever the you know, what is H?
speaker-1: Attention deficit. It's attention deficit hyperactive disorder.
speaker-0: Yeah. So it's like and then you have a hyperactive internet basically that has competing for your attention.
speaker-1: Yeah, well now you you know, you well because if you look like the D I don't know, the DSM five now, I think. The di di ⁓ diagnostic diagnostic and statistical manual for all the your psychiatric things, pathologies. Right. I mean that's you know, that's grown over, you know, the course of the twentieth century.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: And in my mind, a lot of the things that are now considered pathologies are just the normal reaction to being forced to live in abnormal conditions. You know, so we've pathologized normal reactions to abnormal conditions rather than address the conditions that are causing these bad reactions.
speaker-0: Right, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. ⁓ thanks again for joining us on a historic episode forty two, the answer to everything, life, universe, and everything. ⁓
speaker-1: Yeah. Problem is nobody properly understands the question.
speaker-0: question and that's why we're here to ask more questions. ⁓ in the anyways this is episode forty two. Feed the algorithm, you know, the like, the subscribe, comment, wherever you're at, whether it's Spotify or Apple iTunes or wherever you're listening, YouTube,
speaker-1: Neither do we Thanks for joining. Subs
speaker-0: Yeah, hit all the algorithm checkpoints and that will help us out a lot. ⁓ hit up our Patreon. ⁓ we still have no Patreon people, but but once we get some, we will start doing the things that are on there. Technically we don't have a live episode yet, although I think I put that on the Patreon that we do one live episode. ⁓ but we have no
speaker-1: That's fine. I'm going to do that.
speaker-0: I don't know. I just mean live like as in people can watch us right now, like while we're recording. I don't mean live like we're gonna go stand in stage in front of somebody just in case. That's way I don't know. That's the but anyways, thanks again. Occasionally Philosophical. I'm Mark and you're and we'll see you next time.
