capitalism

All Round Exploitation

I’d like to talk about
Bruce Boytation, which

is something I knew about inherently because
I had experienced it when I was young.

In the 80s, it was
very hard to find

martial arts movies, which
was a genre I had discovered.

I wanted more Kung Fu action.

I wanted more John
Wu style shooting movies

from Asia, and you had
to take what you could get.

After Bruce Lee’s
death, of course, there

became sort of a vacuum
of power, and nature

hates a vacuum, and so
what the Chinese did has

any approximation of
Bruce Lee that they can find.

So they found mostly
lookalikes, and they

gave them new names, and so just
to give you a sense of the extent.

So these are the ones that are documented.

There means there were dozens,
if not hundreds, more, of these.

But after 1973, we
had the launch of the

career of Bruce Lee,
who is in today’s movie, L.I.

Bruce Lee, L.A.I., Bruce Lee, L.E.,
Bruce Leung, L.E.U.N.G., Bruce Lee, L.Y.

, Bruce Bruce tie,
and Bruce Leung, L.E.I.

The hope was you would see the cover, you’d
see some guy who kind of looks like Bruce

Lee may be dressed
the same, and they’d be

doing in like a pose,
so it’s obviously action

packed, and you’d
see Bruce in Ulf, and

they’d just not even
bother to read the rest,

because now you’re too
busy grabbing the movie

and running to the
front of the video store.

Some other ones they
did were pretty interesting.

Bruce Lee, so B.R.U.T.E.,
L.E.E., Myron Bruce,

that one’s not very
accurate, Lee Bruce,

which I did enjoy the
creativity of that one,

Dragon Lee, and Bronson
Lee, which I assume

is the love child of Charles Bronson and
Bruce Lee, which would not be a good human.

I don’t know why I was going to end
up with that, not a good combination.

On that, they didn’t
just kind of, I want to

use the word parody,
but they’re trying to

copy, but they’re trying
to defraud people into

thinking they’re getting
a Bruce Lee movie.

Some of the movies that
came out re-enter the

dragon, which sounds
weirdly sexual, enter three

dragons, and I think what they did in
this one, they got like Bruce Leung, Bruce

Leung, Bruce Leung,
Bruce Leung, to all be

in the movie together,
Return of Bruce, enter

another dragon, which
again, I don’t know

where my heads are
where those sounds actually.

I don’t think, I guess I just enter is
one of those hot button words for me.

Return of the Fist of
Fury, which I have seen.

I don’t remember
anything about it, but I

know I have seen a
movie called Return of the

Fist of Fury, and the clones of
Bruce Lee, which I know I have seen.

I also again, do not
remember if I can find

those again, I will be
getting them, because

I know the clones of Bruce Lee again
has multiple Bruce Lee lookalikes in it.

Now to me, Bruce Lee’s whole martial
arts philosophy was the definitive feature.

So I think there’s this
look in his style and

stuff, but the definitive
feature of Bruce

Lee was not beholden
to the Kung Fu tradition.

He grew up, he learned Kung Fu, and he
said like these movesets are too limited.

You have to be more fluid, you have to
be more, you have to be able to adjust.

So like set forms are not
the best way to do martial arts.

And it’s why maybe he was a
step above other martial artists.

Most of the movies that I have seen on the
list, and that’s not a comprehensive list.

It’s just from the Wikipedia article.

Most of the movies I’ve seen on this list
of Bruce Lee clone movies, or rip-offs or

frauds, or whatever you want to
call them, use traditional Kung Fu.

So they’re traditional Kung Fu
movies, so there’s a lot of that.

That to me is a marker
of 1960s, ’70s and early

’80s Kung Fu, is that
there’s a single move.

It’s well coordinated,
but it’s a single

move, single move,
single move, and they both,

as they’ve practiced,
it looks really nice.

I have always enjoyed
the athleticism of go

Kung Fu, like I know, I would say that
Kung Fu is not particularly practical.

I’m sorry to hurt anyone’s feelings,
but saying that, it’s better than IKEA-DO.

Am I worried about hurting the
feelings of someone who does IKEA-DO?

Steven Segal, I mean, because IKEA-DO has
Steven Segal, there’s nothing else to say.

He ruined any opportunity for IKEA-DO
to be considered legitimate in any form.

That traditional Kung
Fu, to me, is the most

stark contrast, because I would say that’s
much easier to teach than what Bruce Lee

actually did, which is why,
again, Bruce Lee was different.

So let’s get on
to today’s movie.

This is Shameless Cross Promotion of Chunk
McBeaf Chest’s new YouTube channel, Seemic BIMDB.

For classic action
movies, jokes and reactions,

find it on YouTube,
link in the description.

When I was doing the
Ninja News Japan, I noticed

my air filter started
flashing red, which

means there’s stuff in the air.

Now, it’s blue now,
so it’s cleaned it up a

bit, but I’m weird, I’m going
to start sneezing any time now.

All right, let’s go with a Seemic B.
So I was walking Dave.

Anyone who follows this podcast knows Dave.

Dave is my constant companion.

He is my rescue poodle,
and did he rescue me?

Did I rescue him or did he rescue me?

My cold, broken heart?

No, he’s an annoying piece
of shit, but I love him anyways.

That’s actually just the
reality of pissy little dogs.

He’s like a little Prince
Archibald character.

He will not go out
in inclement weather,

which is very important
to the context of this story.

I was walking Dave yesterday morning, and
I was wearing noise canceling headphones.

Now, I am a not particularly
social person, and

I have found that the
world does not understand

what gigantic headphones
means on your head.

If there was any way
to send a message to

the world that I do not want to hear
what you have to say, go fuck yourself.

It would be giant headphones.

And then if you actually
know anything about

headphones, you know,
most of those big ones

are noise canceling, so you are
hearing nothing from the outside world.

I’m walking Dave.

And then I hear just this in the
background, no, I don’t know what it is.

So I turn around to check
because I don’t want to make

sure, like, you know, I have
noise canceling headphones on.

I want to make sure I haven’t
done anything wrong by accident.

I haven’t messed up someone
else’s day to turn around.

And there’s a older woman,
just her mouth is going.

So I’m like, oh, I think that
person might be talking to me.

So I am polite, which maybe is a failing.

So I take off my nose canceling headphones.

I shouldn’t have done that.

I realize this.

I realize I should be
slightly rude or, and

when I hear the, I
should just keep walking.

Don’t turn around.

Don’t check, but I
guess socially I have been

raised to believe that
I should pay attention

to other human beings,
which, you know, at this

point, I’m like, that’s
probably a mistake.

Now, let’s see, as soon as I realized what
this woman was talking to me about, I was

furious.

I don’t know if it was last week or two
weeks ago, but I talked about reactants.

And it was like when people tell you to do
something, there is an instinct in humans.

And I reason this
resonated with me is because

there is a significant
instinct in me to not do it.

So this woman starts telling me
stuff and it’s stuff I don’t want to know.

And I am furious.

Now, I’m not going to
do anything because

again, I’m socially responsible enough
to know you don’t beat up old ladies.

But the instinct of the desire to just
lay into her was right there, right away.

She said to me, so she
was speaking in Japanese,

so she said to me
that your dog’s a single

coat poodle and it’s fine in the
summer, but it’s too cold right now.

You need to get him a coat.

You know, I am not
raising a killing machine.

He is my confidante, so I am
very protective of my little friend.

This little fucking prince refuses to go
out if the weather is in any way inclement.

If it is raining at all,
he will not go out.

If it is too windy, he will not go out.

If it is too cold, he will not go out.

So basically I would
open the door in the

morning, I put him on the porch, and he
decides if he wants to go for a walk or not.

The thing is that morning
time is when he has to go to

the toilet, it’s the breakfast
kind of part of the day.

So I really don’t care if he takes a walk.

I want him to go out
there and do his business.

Now, he will look at me like the weather is
inconvenient for me to be pooping in some.

So I shall return inside
the house where it is warm

and comfortable, and I
will poop on your floor.

Is this agreeable to you?

And I look at him and I go,
“No, you little piece of shit.

You’re not pooping on my floor.

We have a whole toilet thing
set up for him that he will not use.

” A couple weeks ago,
inclement weather was raining.

He wouldn’t go outside and poop,
and I’m like, “I have to go to work.

I can’t leave him here.

He’s going to poop on the floor.

I knew he was going
to poop on the floor.

” We’d set up this
doggy pad area, and there

was a yoga mat out and
he pooped on the yoga mat.

He was like, “You piece of shit.

” Because you know what he did?

He pooped on the more comfortable thing.

I see how his little
fucking peanut brain works.

He’s like, “Oh, there’s those pads over
there where you’re supposed to poop.

” But then this yoga
mat’s slightly softer

and it’s more cushiony
on my sensitive paws.

And so he pooped on
that, and so my daughter

came home and she
saw poop on the yoga mat.

She’s like, “I don’t
know if I should clean

that or throw it away, but it
was an expensive yoga mat.

“

Again, little prince
of Persia over here,

pooping on the most
expensive thing he can find.

Don’t think that was accidental.

If I had my expensive shoes out, I guarantee
there would be poop in those shoes.

Those shoes.

I have my own negative
feelings towards my

little friend over here, my
little gray fluffy poof face.

But the reason I’m
angry and not going to

take any advice from
this lady is she had come

to the park with her
poodle in a coat and a

baby stroller with the baby
stroller completely covered in plastic.

So it was essentially a greenhouse.

She’s walking to the
park, starting telling me

about how I should
better take care of my dog.

You don’t even have a
dog, like what you have

now is a marshmallow
that is barely sentient.

And the way you’re
treating it shows that

you’re not actually
thinking like, “Okay, yeah,

I didn’t put a coat on
my dog because I know

if the dog is too cold, he’s just going
to turn around and go back in the house.

I do have a coat for him, we can’t
put him on, I can’t make him go outside.

” But I now have actually
come to trust his instincts.

If he’s not comfortable,
he’s absolutely

going to fucking let me know because I
don’t make decisions in this relationship.

I just follow orders, which has given him
this pissy attitude where he thinks he can

shit on yoga mats, but also Dave does
have the survival skills to back it up.

So the reason we got Dave, Dave
is a rescue and what had happened

to Dave is some piece of shit
out there, dumped him in a forest.

Now, a pretty little dog, you think,
not going to survive in a forest.

My first thought was always,
he did it without thumbs.

I have thumbs, so I
can do things and make

things and grab and
dig and things like that.

I would die in a forest pretty
quickly like I wouldn’t make it.

Let’s just face facts.

I got a skill set, that skill
set is designed for a modern

society where pretty much
everything’s taken care of for me.

Put me in a wildlife situation
and I am not wildlife, I am food.

Dave, for an entire
month, survives in a forest.

I don’t know what he’s eating.

I assume it was grass and bugs because
he’s not catching anything, he’s too slow.

He survived, he’s a
poodle, so his hair just

grew and grew and grew
and grew, so he looked

like this giant sheep, he was
underfed, but that’s how we got him.

This dude is a survivor and
how he ended up with us with his

life where he’s now like, I will
only shit on yoga mats, okay.

He’s paid his, he’s done his time, this
woman with the fucking dog and a baby stroll

or pissed me off so much because I’m
like, you are so far gone the other way.

You should not be telling
anyone how to live their lives.

And she’s acting like I’m ignorant.

I’m like, no, it’s still an animal,
it still needs to walk by itself.

You don’t put in a fucking
baby stroll or you fucking psycho.

You make it walk from
your house to the park.

You make it do things, like I’m just
thinking it’s hearts can explode really soon.

I do get, you want your
animals to be comfortable.

My dog sleeps on a bed
on my bed, it’s double

bedded, but I also
know if I stick that

little fucker in a forest, he’s going
to survive for at least a month.

And he’s earned the
right to have this chill

time where you and
your animal absolutely

have not talked a lot
about capitalism and

seeming to be for the
last little while because

it’s new stories
that come up and it’s

capitalism, something
I’m finding very interesting

on late stage capitalism is
something we talk about a lot.

It seems to be an
experiment that is widening

the gap between the
rich and the poor, which

is going to lead to a problem sooner
or later, ironically, for rich people.

And that’s the bit I think they
don’t get, like this gap is bad for them.

But it’s also leads me
into really weird stories,

just stories of companies
overstepping because

it’s rich people thinking they can do
whatever they want and get away with it.

And when they can’t get
away with it, it’s always

a bit of a come up and
so there was a woman

and she had a newsletter
and in her newsletter,

she talked about eBay
and an eBay Amazon

lawsuit specifically 30 minutes after
publishing this story in her newsletter.

The CEO of eBay sent a
message to another executive

saying, if you’re going to
take her down, now is the time.

So my first thought was,
CEOs don’t do very much.

There was someone
pointed out that Elon Musk is

the CEO of seven
companies and that’s supposed

to sound impressive,
but it actually makes

you think the CEO clearly
doesn’t do that much

if he can be CEO of
seven companies at the

same time, like he’s not
making real day-to-day decisions.

He’s not really like
guiding the company if he

can do seven or eight
companies at the same time.

So the more company someone is the CEO of
actually means, in my mind, they are less

effective as a CEO,
but this CEO sent this

message to the security
director and he sent

a message out and he said, this
bias to troll needs to be burned down.

So what did they do?

And this was to me the more important part
was like, what did this meeting look like?

So you have the security director.

There’s two people actually are doing
jail time for this right now and two people

are still kind of having
it worked out like

what their participation in this was
because this was organized harassment.

The actual crimes, let’s put the crimes
out there first, obstruction of justice.

So pretty obviously they were trying
to not help the police catch them.

Witness tampering.

They were using intimidation tactics
as part of their harassment campaign.

So the idea that
they would do witness

tampering is not actually
out of it and at all.

Stalking, interstate travel
stalking and online stalking.

So what were they actually doing?

So the security director
seems to be primarily

responsible for
these current actions.

The CEO who said, like, go get this
lady, he quit before this was finished.

And then the current CEO
was like, oh, sorry, it wasn’t us.

It was the previous CEO and now he’s
not involved, so he’s not getting arrested.

I wasn’t involved.

So I’m not getting arrested.

This seems like a very
CEO oriented style trick.

And I think everyone should
get a little something out of that.

Oh, she actually said, we continue
to extend our deepest apologies.

And then we’ve had new
leadership since then, and

of course, we’re doing
our better to train people.

Do you have to train people
to not harass other people?

That’s a very good question
that should be put out there.

But first of all, it started
with online threats.

So the people, the security people at eBay
were sending threats to this person who had

a newsletter talking
about a lawsuit between

eBay and Amazon, which
actually makes me think

that’s one step away from it.

I’m doing right now.

I talk about companies suing
each other and stuff all the time.

I guess her newsletter
was more popular than my

podcast, makes me
feel a little sad right now.

They surveyed their home using employees.

So imagine in this
part, you’re working at

eBay, you’re just a
security guard, I assume,

because this security
guy would have sort of his

purview would be over
the security personality.

He’d be like, you got a
special mission for you.

And I was like, wow, does
eBay have special missions?

You’re going to go and do a stakeout
and like, dude, I’m a security guard.

I like walk around the hallways.

I do not do stakeouts like, no,
no, you’re going to do a stakeout.

You’re going to go to this person’s house.

I don’t even know if
this is actually accurate.

I don’t know if it was a security personnel
or if this security director was just like

any staff, he’s like, I want you, IT
guy to go stakeout this lady’s house.

And the IT guy’s like,
well, leave the office.

That sounds great.

There are a lot of questions there of how
this went down, which is these fundamental

details are the most interesting part
to me because they don’t give them out.

I’m actually, I construct
them in the head in my head.

You can actually see where I’m going, but
so he has a conversation with something.

I want you to go and
survey this person’s house.

You can do a stakeout.

You’re going to watch when they come
home, when they leave, you’re getting paid.

You’re getting your
paid, your salary to role

play as a detective
or a cop or like, some

of them hero you have from a movie.

So someone was on board with this.

They surveyed their house.

They tracked their
movements and then they’re

like, okay, we’ve got to do some
harassment because of course.

And they’re like, okay, so they must have
had a meeting and they’re like, okay, so

they have a meeting, security director sits
down with some other guys in the office.

These are all office personnel, okay.

We have this woman,
she sent out a newsletter

and we’d like to make
sort of a response

to that that eBay is
not particularly pleased

with how she’s presented
us within this new

letter, newsletter,
within the construct of

the newsletter she’s created,
there’s a lawsuit going on.

We don’t think she
should be talking about it.

We don’t really appreciate her opinion.

So we were thinking a great
idea to send her some live spiders.

If I was in a business meeting
and that came out, I’d be like, what?

No, you can’t send someone live spiders.

That’s not a good thing to do.

He’s like, no, no, okay.

Live spiders and second package,
cockroaches, live cockroaches.

How about we send them
some live cockroaches?

And again, I’d be saying to me,
I’m going like, this seems unhinged.

This seems like a bad idea.

This seems like not the way we should forge
forward into a new future with our company.

Sending people we don’t like
live cockroaches and live spiders.

Oh, we’re not going to stop there.

We’re going to send them a bloody pig mask.

Now I’m going to go ahead
and guess the blood was not real.

The bloody pig mask was sort of the
description of the mask, the whole mask.

So I actually at that
point was like a free mask.

I mean, that’s not so bad.

Live spiders live cockroaches, I don’t
want that in my house, bloody pig mask.

Halloween’s taken care of, I guess.

And then finally, a book on
recovering from the death of a spouse.

So a slightly veiled
threat that your spouse

may or may not die
soon and how you could

get over it should this
incident happen coupled

with pig mask, live
spiders, live cockroaches.

Something a message that
the harassment is quite clear.

The punishment for eBay was $3 million
fine, which I feel like that’s not enough.

I feel like company like
eBay is a big company.

These two guys did jail time, but yeah, I’m
just like, did they, I guess I don’t know

the fallout for the actual
people who were being harassed.

But that is organized
harassment by an online retailer.

And at some point,
they thought this was

okay, they were going
to get away with this.

This is a good thing to do.

So thankfully, I have never and
I’m never going to shop at eBay.

I was just about to
say I was never going to

talk about eBay, but I just, I’m
sure they don’t want that out there.

So I get some live
spiders actually not that,

you know, because I’m assuming
the spiders were in a package.

So like they didn’t just like scurry out
like they wouldn’t know horror movie.

Like that would be bad because
that have spiders all over my house.

I would have to catch them.

I wouldn’t be as
freaked out the pig mask,

free pig mask, the book,
I don’t know, depends

how well it’s written
to be honest, but

capitalism, you can
see, I actually blame that

on the high level C
suite executives feeling

they can do whatever they want to,
whomever they want and get away with it.

Well, it turns out in communist
countries, same problem.

So it’s not inherently
capitalism that’s the issue.

I guess you could.

Maybe this is capitalism as
well or this is capitalist attitude.

I’m not sure.

But this is in China, a Chinese advertising
agency said we’re going to move our office

from the city, fairly large city to
a countryside and remote location.

And there is some
suspicion that they did this

on purpose to try to
get the employees to quit.

So let’s give you the whole story.

They moved from the city to a
mountain with limited transportation.

Now what does that mean?

It’s a two hour commute one way.

So basically if you don’t
have a car, there were

almost no options to
actually get to this office.

If you had a car, you had to drive two
hours and the company saying we’re not going

to pay you for the wear and tear on
your car, the gas or anything like that.

There was a bus every three hours.

But if you even managed
to catch the bus and

take it to the location,
you still had a three

kilometer walk from the
bus stop to the office.

If you took a taxi,
you could take a taxi

from the train station
to the office, but the

company wouldn’t cover
the cost for the for the taxi.

So they were like, all the
burden is on the employee.

They’d say that sounds
pretty bad because

they’re making this
commute miserable, they’re

making it impossible for
you to come to the office.

That was not it.

The building itself had no women’s toilet.

So if you were a woman
and you worked for

this company, you had to walk to
the nearest village to use a public toilet.

They said that this was made worse
because the straight dogs made it unsafe.

And after dark, it was worse.

I guess the dogs get buffed after dark.

It’s like those zombie
movies where the

zombies are bad during the
day, but at night, they’re worse.

There were 20 employees
and 14 after only a few days.

It was four days later, 14
of the employees had quit.

So then the company
moved back, their

headquarters back to the city and immediately
put on an ad looking for new employees.

The employees were like, hey, we
don’t think this was a sincere move.

We think you move the office to
try to make us all uncomfortable.

So we would quit so
that you could, instead of

firing us because there
is within the contracts

in China, you have
to, if you fire a group

of people or you do
something like that, you

have to compensate them and you
didn’t want to pay that compensation.

So you moved to an
office, not sincerely and

you waited for us to quit and then
you moved right back to the city.

That’s what we think happened.

The company’s like, we’re
going to sue you for slander.

That is not what happened.

We moved to the countryside because we had
to and yes, there were no ladies toilets

and you had to walk through wild dogs to
get to them, but that was not on purpose.

That was not part of our plan.

They said rent was high and the
new office was being renovated.

So we temporarily moved
there from where we were before.

Now the employees
were told that the new

location was a headquarters
for at least a year if not more.

So what they’re saying
is like, oh, we knew

this was only going to take a
couple of weeks for renovation.

But the employees are saying,
that’s not what you said to us.

You said, we were going to be working
there for potentially years in China.

If you change location
without employees’

consent, it is actually
a breach of contact.

And so this company is now in trouble.

I don’t have a lot of access to
Chinese news if I’m being honest.

I do want to follow
up in this story and

see if the company
gets in trouble, how much

they get sued for and
stuff, but it’s not going

to be like the eBay thing where
everything’s on the internet and available.

It’s going to be a lot
harder for me to get.

But it seems like the
nature of companies be it

in a capitalist or
communist society is exactly

the same and at the end
of the day, we’re all fucked.

But most importantly of all, don’t
listen to crazy ladies in the park.

[MUSIC]

Dystopian Terms of Service

I did a story on Temu a few weeks
back and it’s because I had never heard of

Temu it came up as like an advertisement
and it was selling a keyboard and

that’s super super cheap and I was like
that’s got to be weird and I like to try

things to see if the real and I tried
it I didn’t know this was a massive

company it’s actually already a
massive company then I found out that the

people who are essentially the coders
for Temu are also the people who created

an app previously that got delisted
because it was harvesting all your

information and selling it on the web
so I was really weirded out I deleted it.

I’m really torn because if it’s like
a big big massive company is it still

doing these nefarious things yes because
that’s what big big companies do but

it’s weird because if it’s like a group
stealing your information let’s say

like ten guys that seems weirder
and scarier than Amazon stealing your

information but the reason it came up
again is I was a little torn because I was

like if it’s a big company I might have
some protections against it because

the issue really is what kind of
guarantees are in place is the government

oversight because if you have a
little criminal organization like five ten

guys they’re going to take everything
they can and run a company Temu that is

internationally recognized is going to
have a much harder time doing that so

there might be some protections there
so I was like should I try to get as many

deals as I can before they rip me off
so badly and get all my information and

go somewhere else and sell it to someone
you know nefarious I don’t know then

the story came out that they’re suing
shine the shine is a company I had heard

of but I’ve never used so it’s a fast
fashion company I think you can tell from

what’s presented in front of you if you
watch the YouTube video fast fashion is

not my thing I’m into very old fashion
what am I wearing now I’m wearing a

sweater like a hoodie that I don’t
like but it is the problem is that it’s so

comfortable it is the most comfortable
piece of clothing I own so I don’t

really like giant labels and it has a
giant roots label on the chest if that

if it didn’t have that I’d probably
be okay with it but the thing is the

core issue is I actually don’t like the
way it looks but it’s like wearing Jedi

pajamas all day which I’m a big fan
of I’m super comfortable I have an old

champion Henley underneath and a
t-shirt under that and ever last so it’s

just like different sports brands layered
on top of each other and I have a hat

with a slightly racist character
on it so fashion is clearly not my

forte I buy stuff primarily based on
comfort so I’m not the target audience

for shine I had heard that shine was
getting the influencers paying them to

try to make themselves look better
because they had a bad reputation

Temu is suing shine saying that shine
is using intimidation on merchants who

list on both sides so if I have a
product and I listen on Temu and I

listen on shine that shine will come
and try to intimidate me to take it down

from Temu now these are all shit
companies I wouldn’t trust any of these

companies but when they get into
intimidation mafia tactics we are now.

getting into a new stage of capitalism this

interferes with them is business so
shine has also it tried to interfere with

them is business by issuing thousands of
copyright takedowns 63% of the copyright

takedowns on Temu are actually
claims from shine they’ve also claimed that

shine has imprisoned merchants who
list with Temu and confiscated their

devices so basically I’m a merchant I
want to sell some stuff on Temu and

shine maybe Amazon the shine representatives
will be like oh come meet with

us in his office and they’ll lock me in
the office and take away my cell phone

and they don’t want to let me go until
I agree to take all my shit down from

Temu this is the dystopia that fiction
talks about like if you think about all

the science fiction and video games
and stuff what you end up with is two

three four five companies that become
company states and they run everything

and they compete against each other but
then of course it gets to this level where

they have private armies and militaries
and it seems it’s a dystopia thing

they got like ninjas and assassins
and robots and stuff and then they kill

other people but again the police are
useless because they don’t have the

same power as the company state that’s
now in place so you end up working for a

company you work for that company for
the rest of your life until you die that

is I mean this is dystopia you have a
company that is intimidating kidnapping

people to try to get them to stop
working with another company they’re using

tactics that are clearly illegal I’m
wondering how this is going to get

proven though because if this is
actually proven then shy and actually has

people who should go to jail weirdly
because Temu is making the accusations

it makes them seem like the good guy
but like I said when I started I’m pretty

sure the programmers for that are
a group of scam people who actually

like created software that collects
your information and sells it directly to.

you I would even assume shine at
this point shine has then gone back and

accused Temu of getting influencers
to say negative things about shine and to

promote Temu but that was dropped
so it’s not that they didn’t do it it’s

that they couldn’t prove it and then
shine is trying to go public in the US

so this is a big problem because it’s
very hard to go public if you have like

court cases pending they have
labor practice issues copyright merch

controversies but I mean this is all
just the same for Amazon I’m wondering

where it’s gonna end up like you
have Amazon is the dominant online

retailer Temu got my attention
because they sold stuff really cheap the

keyboard that I have right here they
sold it to me for about four dollars now

it’s a thirty forty fifty dollar
keyboard and so they’re selling things at

like ninety percent discount to get
you into their system and that’s where I

realize oh maybe that’s how they
get your information but if they want to

keep their company going they actually
have to make a profit they actually

have to sell and like I said it is a
giant company it’s it’s weird now that we

have giant companies in the Internet
space that I’ve never even heard of like

I had not heard of Temu until a few months
ago and then after I bought something

from them I saw a report on them and
I it keeps popping up because now the

algorithm is caught that I’ve actually
bought something from it keeps popping up in

the algorithm and I get emails from
them and stuff but it was just completely

off the radar for me and I was wondering
is that me am I not connected in that

way anymore shine makes sense
they don’t sell products that I really care

about so there’d be no reason for me
to know about them all I knew is that

there was controversy with labor
practices because that is something I’m

interested in that shows where my
brain is as someone who basically makes.

podcasts and just reads the news all
the time but I’m looking at late stage

capitalism and dystopian novels and
seeing a lot of the stuff they’re talking

about like if they’re actually
physically intimidating people if they’re

actually going so far as to imprison
people in rooms for periods of time we

really are approaching a point
where we need an international police

organization to monitor the behavior
and actions of international companies

because local police won’t be able
to do it but then now we’re getting into

like literal it’s just dystopian we’re
getting into these literal novels where you

have private militaries going at
each other stealing information and.

stuff and it’s it’s at that point where
he’s like is this the world I want to

live in and of course about
10 years ago I realized it wasn’t.

Opera GX has come out with a new version
of their browser which is fine I mean

I use a couple of different browsers
I have one that I use primarily just

personally so like all my regular surfing
stuff is chrome and then I have one

that I keep separate from everything
else so if I ever want to do something

on Twitch on stream or anything and I
want to throw something up I don’t want

there to have any sort of naughty websites
remembered in the in the cookies or

anything so I use a completely different
browser I use Vivaldi for that so if

I ever throw up like a page I’m gonna
do it in Vivaldi and then if I click a

link it comes up in edge I haven’t
changed that yet so I essentially have

three functional browsers on my computer
at any time but Opera GX has always

been one that I’ve used it and then
dropped it and then used it and then

dropped it’s kind of like Firefox I’ll
use it and then drop it and then use it.

then drop it the new one though has
a panic button which I really enjoy this

innovation so if you hit F12 so you’re
let’s say you’re looking at a naughty

naughty website in your mom or dad
comes in the room if you hit F12 it will

mute play back immediately and I’ll
switch to a new window you can pick the

website that it will go to to be your
safe site so you could just pick something

really nice like a CNN news site or
something like that something that would

make your parents happy a study site
something that would be very you know oh

you know he’s looking at how to improve
his language skills he’s looking at.

different courses he could he could
audit at different universities what a

great young man then you hit F12 again
it brings back your penguin porn with the

full sound regaling you instantly the
interesting thing you can do though so

let’s say you’re a parent you’re on
the other side you walk in to your kids

room and you see them hit the keyboard
really quick I have to just walk up and

press F12 and see what comes back up
on the screen if they’re using the Opera

GX browser I do like this as an innovation
though because you should have an

the ability to keep certain stuff sort
of personalized and private and you

should have an emergency escape thing
I used to run a blog when blogging was

relatively popular and you know big
long essays with pictures and stuff and I’d

made a second version of it and what
I did is I skinned it to look like a word

document and I also had it so it would
not load any of the pictures so if you

really wanted to just sit in your
office all day and read my blog you could

actually just click this link on the
main page and it would take you to if you

hit full screen it looked like a full
screen word document it had the ribbon

across the top and then all the text
was loaded into times new Roman as a

document and you could just scroll
down and read all the stuff you didn’t get

the pictures but that’s fine I wasn’t
particularly good at pictures anyways

but I already had the same thought
I’m like there are situations where you

don’t want other people to really
know what you’re doing in this case I

wasn’t doing anything dirty on my
website but it was entertainment and if

you’re in your office you want to read
entertainment I wanted to facilitate that

because I wanted you to have a fun
happy good time at your workplace and I

wanted you to come back to my website
so I’m actually thinking about trying

opera GX not for the panic button
because again I’m now at a stage of my

life where if someone walked in and I
was looking at porn I’d be like excuse me

I’m looking at porn please get out
of my room I wouldn’t I wouldn’t be

particularly ashamed of that I did get
the scam email and it’s the one where

they go we hacked your webcam and
we screen-shotted you while you were

masturbating to porn and then they
always throw in a little joke like you

have good taste or something like
that and it’s funny because even if I

believe they had done that they’d
picked the wrong target of course they

don’t pick the targets they just like
blast out an email to everyone in the

planet I was jokingly telling my wife
about it that I got this email and she

said yeah but if you got that email
and because what they said is if you

don’t pay us whatever one hundred
thousand dollars in Bitcoin send it to

this wallet we’re gonna send everyone
in your Facebook or your links or.

something an image of you masturbating
to porn and my wife went but you

wouldn’t care I was like yeah at this
point in my life if they sent a picture of

me masturbating to porn to everyone I
know like everyone in my my friends list

on various websites I think everyone
knows me would find it just as funny as I

would find it myself so that’s ineffective
because essentially if you want to

shame people you have to attack people
who have shame the last big piece of.

news that I want to talk about because
I’m just trying to again I’ve talked

in the last episode that I haven’t
been very productive with seeming be

initiative Japan kind of runs itself
as long as news is coming out and it

always is I can just gather news and
then talk about it but seeming be I have to

have the ideas or have a new source or
something I heard my knee about a month

ago and it’s meant that I am not
having any creative thoughts I think it’s

Maslow’s pyramid of needs and so
down at the bottom is all your basic needs

and if you want to get intellectual
thought is at the top so basically at the

bottom you have to have food you have
to be able to go to the toilet and you have

to have comfort and then the next one
up is going to be comfort like you have

to have a place to live and be able to
survive and you know wear clothes and be

warm and then you can get to eat good
food and have entertainment and then

get to the next level the next level
on the top level is you can actually take

time to have intellectual thought but
as something goes wrong in your life it

actually drops you down a level so my
knee causing me discomfort means I’m not

thinking about the world I’m thinking
about my knee which actually means injured

people are dumber because not of their
own fault they’re just so focused on the

pain they feel they’re not having any
other thoughts the example that I really

enjoyed was let’s say you were a
member of a peace treaty group so you’re

sitting down you’re trying to get you
have two warring factions and you’re

going to try to get those two warring
factions to sign a peace tree and this is

like lives are on the line and so
you’re in the negotiations and you really

have to poo this is a great example
of what it’s talking about like it doesn’t

matter how smart you are if you are
distracted by a physical need you’re not

going to be able to maintain any
sort of level of physical or intellectual

thought so if you don’t take care of
those base needs first you won’t be able

to achieve that level of intellectual
ability that you’re capable of so

because I haven’t messed up me and
it hurts all the time I’m not capable of

having intellectual thoughts anymore
so I need to pull from the news because

I’m not having any ideas my only idea
is got my knee stiff God my knees hurts

oh geez I wish I could use my knee
again that kind of stuff but the most

recent news I use Twitch I record this
podcast on Twitch I use to capture the

video I capture the video I download
it I edit it I extract the audio make a

podcast that’s the original source take
whatever’s left over which is the video

put that on YouTube in some other
places so you can watch the video edited so

you don’t have to listen to me cough
and sneeze give Dave a little second in.

back there so you can settle down
okay let’s walk Dave’s butt oh he’s pulled

up his his own pillow and he’s trying to
tear it apart because of course what’s

more comfortable than a torn up pillow
just getting his butt right in the screen

good job buddy one no not torn up enough
I’m gonna kill it get two three turns

come on man four oh there you go
finally Dave is my hero okay so the news so

I record this on Twitch and some news
came out on December 13th and they

decided that they wanted to put a
warning essentially on your boobs before

anything sort of sexual was not
allowed but sexual and stuff this is the

problem with porn and art is how
is it defined and it’s very difficult to

define so people don’t know what it is
Twitch allowed people to I mean people

were already pushing the limits I
had watched a couple and I don’t watch

them for any sort of sexual gratification
I just kind of shocked as I just

stare at it it’s very very much like a
car wreck so there was key he got a

kitty and she just puts oil and sparkles
on her boobs and pushes where it’s

like a push of bra and basically does
nothing and then just recently someone

showed me Asian bunny X who has
got a ridiculous body it’s very cartoonish

but I noticed she actually spends a
significant portion of the stream not on

screen so I mean maybe that’s part of
the technique so she’s wearing a string

bikini and everything’s hanging out
but that’s fine as long as it’s rated

for adults well they came out with
a new thing it was sort of a mature

content sexual content kind of
thing they will now allow deliberately

highlighted breasts buttocks and pelvic
regions which means the bikini would be

perfectly acceptable whereas before it
would be up to the content moderators to

decide if this was acceptable or not and
again this is comes down to opinions which

is hard because we’re supposed to be
following rules stuff like that but then

what does that actually mean highlight
can I basically have a black room with a

spotlight on my boobs and the other
thing is they made it the same for art

streams because art streams you
know art is often sexual or has sexualized

themes so they wanted to do that I
actually thought this was a very nice idea

they’re like we want people to be able
to express themselves and then another

person suggests maybe they want to
bid it at only fans money but because they

have no way of tearing out people like
how do you make people make sure that

people are adults like only fans for
all the bad it may be you need to I

think you need a credit card to join
it which means you’re at least an adult

enough to get a credit card or you can
steal it from your parents but that way

at least they are trying to make sure
only adults are in there whereas Twitch

isn’t set up that way like I actually put
my streams on adult because I swear a

lot or I want to feel free to swear
but I’ve had but kids come in like they

come in and they say hey I’m 12
years old and I’m just like kid I actually

don’t think you should be here they
also said erotic dances are okay so

twerking grinding pull dancing but
that was already okay so what erotic was

beyond twerking I don’t actually know
so I’d be interested in actually seeing

with that what I guess they needed
they needed a video with examples which I

never saw and I think that actually might
be a big problem for a lot of rules is

what you really need more than anything
else is examples of the rule so you

can understand what is too much and
what is not enough the too much bits as an

example would actually be really
interesting pre streamers that said the

previous rules were confusing but I
actually think the new rules still are they

said no sex games and no porn but if
you use this tag you won’t be on the

front page anymore so I think that’s
fair so then came the Tsunami of

boobies and it’s not me a boobies meant
that on December 15th they rolled back

what they had already said so it’s
officially too much and rolling back the

artistic nudity changes and I mean oh
my god it was not artistic at all it was

just boobies everywhere the irony being
that over those two days I didn’t even

get a chance to go look around and see
if I could see any boobies I didn’t get to

see any more boobies than I would
normally see on Twitch the comments from

the the company we’re interesting though
much of the content created has been

met with community concerns so
they’re actually saying people who use the

website were the ones who were concerned
about how sexual it had gotten and then

in the art they said AI deep fakes
might be used might be difficult to discern

from real pictures so they’re basically
saying like if we allow people to do

artistic renderings nudity people
will start deep faking celebrities and

stuff and saying look I have this picture
of celebrities the CEO of Twitch said

he didn’t really understand or he
didn’t really believe how realistic AI

art could be the irony for me being that
we have people who go on art streams on

Twitch and they can draw it takes a
long time but they draw photo realistic

pictures so if you ask them to do
something sexual they can do a photo

realistic sexual picture it’s I mean
people have that skill physically if they

have that skill physically that translating
into computer aided or AI art is

going to be actually very easy at that
point a lot a few streamers made fully

nude avatars or overlays with nude
images in them which was already actually

not allowed you’re not supposed to do
that but then of course they’re like we

have to find out what the boundaries
are the only way to find out the

boundaries is to actually like push them
ourselves and test them so a guy drew

Michelangelo Michelangelo
as a peepee and when

he got to that he
actually got a three-day

band for it oh no yeah Michelangelo is
David not Michelangelo Michelangelo was an

old man although he had a peepee too
so I guess at the end of the day if you

drew him naked it would have been the same
result but no he didn’t draw Michelangelo

he drew Michelangelo’s David that being
a famous piece of art is a famous piece of

art acceptable to show on stream apparently
not three-day band so the CEO said

we went too far and then I actually
ended up entering that is don’t be nice to

artists because they’re
always gonna push the

boundaries and see
where they can get away

with which isn’t the right message I
mean it’s just sex cells so much so Asian

Bunny X again she’s not even on stream
and she’ll have like 14 15 16 thousand

peoples sitting there looking at an
empty room waiting for her to come back

that’s his horny kids and I sit there
sometimes I watch it and it’s like a

tragedy because here I am I want to
do something interesting I want to do

something that is maybe informative for
people and yeah you know I get like three

four viewers I get about 800 people
listen to the podcast I’m actually pretty

happy about that to me that is my core
audience which is why the audio should.

always come first but in the same
vein I once got super super disappointed I

went back to Canada to visit and of
course the jet light hit and I couldn’t

sleep so it’s like two o’clock in the
morning ended a TV show on and it’s

reality TV because that’s the only thing
on it like two o’clock in the morning.

again and it is super-sized my pool and
super-sized my pool made me so depressed

because this was a terrible idea for a
TV show but it actually got made into a

TV show whereas if you gave me the same
amount of money to make a production of

Ninja News Japan or Seamick Bee and then
I could hire a couple of writers and we

could work together and we could brainstorm
and have ideas I think I could make

a really good really good informative
show that’s entertaining and a lot of

fun I don’t get to do that because I
don’t have a big pool or boobies that I

can show on screen I don’t know where
that leaves me because intellectually I.

want to I don’t even know what I
want to say intellectually what do I want I

want to be true to myself and so
I want to keep going with hopefully

interesting commentary on different
things but I realized with a fucked up

knee I’d do a lot better if I just had
big boobs I was the wrong song that’s

again sort of the state
of mind I’m working with

you.

The Enshitification of Capitalism

This is the smartest
shit you’ll hear today.

Generally because you
only talk to dumb people.

I’m Chuck with Beef Chest.
This is Seamick Bee.

I don’t think that’s the
tittest tagline that’s ever

been invented. But you
know, I was just trying stuff.

So recently, Reddit had
some issues. Reddit’s

a big big website
if you don’t know it.

I have been on Reddit for 12 years. I don’t
consider myself a significant Redditor.

I don’t have a particular amount of
Karma that would be impressive to anyone.

But it is a very useful site for someone
like me who likes to intake a lot of

information from a lot of sources,
serious, all the way down to ridiculous.

It’s all there. And that’s
a like about it. That’s

what I like about it. I like
that it’s user submitted.

It’s user run. And of course, that ends up
being the problem for the company that is

Reddit. Reddit, they had a basically a
protest recently and all the big sub-redits.

So they went private, which meant you couldn’t just
go and surf them and look at them yourself. You

couldn’t just drop in and see what was going on.
You couldn’t just read stuff from that sub-redit.

Because it was now private. This
was in retaliation to Reddit saying they

wanted to basically take away the ability
for third party apps to use their API.

What does that mean? I, when I look at Reddit on my
phone, don’t use the official Reddit app. I use a

thing called Reddit is fun. I use it because I like
it better. The official Reddit app is kind of dick.

Excuse me. I just ate so much
food. It’s ridiculous. It’s like an

emotional issue that I’m having.
I just struggling with food lately.

So I use this alternative app. It uses stuff. Again, I
don’t want to get into the technical issues, A, because I

don’t understand it. It gets into stuff and pulls that
magic Internet stuff to pull content from Reddit to the app.

The thing is, the advertising
on that app doesn’t go

back to Reddit. It goes back
to the creator of the app.

Reddit said either you pay a ridiculous
amount of money. This is all about

money. This is what companies do. This
is actually called the in-shitification.

This is actually a real thing. You go
online, you can search for in-shitification.

You’ll actually get a wired article. I think
it was one of the first places I saw it.

It goes through the steps of how a
company grows and then becomes more shitty.

They call it
in-shitification, which I really

enjoy. It’s the kind
of word I remember.

If they used more language like this, more
creative language that suited my parlons,

I would remember a lot more words.

But just to sum up what’s happened
on Reddit, Reddit’s like they want

to make this change, basically want
to shut down any third party apps.

You have to use their app and all these people are like,
“Why the fuck are you doing that? That’s just shitty in me.

You’re just taking money away from other people who are
actually working really hard to make your website better.”

They did a blackout. Reddit comes
in and says, “You can’t do blackouts.

You got to open up your subreddit
or we’re going to be nasty.”

A lot of the subreddit said, “What we’ll do is we’ll change it
from regular to not safe for work because you can’t advertise or

monetize not safe for work websites because Disney doesn’t want
to add showing up next to someone getting like hardcore bone.”

Then, Reddit’s like, “You can’t do that.
We’re going to force you back into it.”

So the protest kind of failed there.

It’s the hypocrisy of this more than
anything else that bugs me. It’s your website

running the way you want, but Reddit as a
website is based off the free labor of people.

Primarily, people submitting content.
That content comes from another source.

Let’s say I make this podcast. Someone else
takes the podcast and puts it on Reddit as like,

“Here’s a stupid podcast I like or I saw and
they talk about Reddit aren’t you interested?

I’ve done the work to create the content that
user has done the work of making it public

on Reddit. Moderators unpaid. Make sure
people don’t get out of hand in the comments.”

So there are three sources of unpaid labor that make
Reddit work and then Reddit is being greedy about

ad stuff because Reddit, if my post, so okay, I got
to do a piece by piece, the mods don’t get paid.

So any ad revenue
that Reddit makes, a cut

doesn’t go to the mods.
That’s an unpaid source.

The person who posts
the content, if it gets

really popular, there’s
no payback for that.

So if you find the best
content and you post on Reddit,

you get Karma, but Karma
doesn’t translate into anything.

And then I is the person
who’s a creator of content. It’s

completely alien to my
platform. So I get views and stuff.

So maybe if I monetize through a secondary
source like, I post this on YouTube, it gets

monetized on YouTube, but the Reddit element of
the advertising, that doesn’t come back to me.

So Reddit as a platform
is based on taking the

work of other people
and utilizing it for growth.

So they were threatening to remove mods and I actually wish the
mods had gone with it and just said, “Fine, replace us. Replace the

hundreds of thousands of people who moderate sub-redits. I would have
loved to see that because then the site would collapse into anarchy.

And it’s what Reddit actually deserves.
I have been looking for an alternative.

This is not the first time a blackout
has happened because at Reddit.

And I have looked for alternatives multiple times. Right now, let
me dot world, l-e-m-m-y dot world, seems like an up-and-coming

growing mastodon driven alternative. Still needs to be
worked on, but it seems better conceptually. How about that?

But if all the mods had left, and this is kind of like I’ve done
stuff in the past where what we need is everyone, users, customers,

whatever, to actually work in uniform, in unison, if they do that,
the protests will be successful because the company will collapse.

So the adjudification, but of course, you’re a mod because of a
certain amount. You’re not doing unpaid work because you love to not

be paid. You’re doing unpaid work because there’s prestige or
something you’d love you want to take care of. It’s one of the other.

There’s a lot of jokes about Reddit mods, they’re
just mods in general. But at the end of the day,

these are people who’ve dedicated their time to
something and they don’t want to just give it up.

So I understand the reluctance, but I
think if all the mods at Reddit were like,

“hands up, we don’t like what you’re doing,
we’re not going to moderate anymore.”.

It would just be all like Nazis
and porn in comments from that

point on, making this site
unusable for that point forward.

It would just be essentially for a chance,
something like that. But something where

advertisers would just be like, “We’re
not putting any money into this anymore.”

So if you just did that. So if just the
moderators just said, “We give up on Reddit,

we’re going to wait until another website
comes up that does things the way we like it.”.

They could actually
collapse Reddit in a week.

The social model worked. So what
they said is we want people to submit,

we’ll vote on the content, we’ll
have moderation. That’s all unpaid.

And the site group, that’s
again, it’s been around for

12 years more plus because
I’ve been on it for 12 years.

So what has changed? So in
shitification is a concept. It’s a real

thing and it does happen to
companies. So we have some examples.

So I want to talk about that.
Number one, step one, the

website or the service is
created. It’s good to users.

One of the examples is Amazon, Amazon used to
be all about getting customers, their books

and they actually used to sell things at a
loss to make sure that people had the money.

To make sure that people had the
best experience they possibly could.

Reddit, good to users, it was all about
the users. And then there’s growth.

Number two, step two is abuse the users
to make money generally on advertising.

So the ads start to come in. We’re
talking Facebook. We’re talking like Amazon

has other companies sort of come in.
That becomes their business partners.

The business partners are how the company makes money. This spurs
growth, but then they have to make it a little shittier for the

user because the priority has changed. The priority is no longer
a good user experience. It’s a good business partner experience.

Then that grows to a degree. And
then step three is abuse the business

partners to claw back value for
yourself so that the company can grow.

So now you are no longer concerned with
the users. You’re no longer concerned with

the business partners. You are solely
concerned with your own growth and profits.

This was the example that I
saw was Facebook. Facebook had

advertisers in business partners
and they were talking about content.

And then people would go to Facebook to read
news articles and then Facebook closed off the

news articles if the company that produced the
news articles didn’t pay to boost their posts.

The people who subscribed to that post to that service wouldn’t
see it. So they forced business partners to pay to get subscribers

to see those things. YouTube has a similar thing. You can
subscribe to stuff and it never seems to show up on your feed.

Why is that? It’s because they want
those people, those business partners,

those things to pay for the service
they’re supposed to be providing.

Because really all of this is content
creator provides content that goes

direct to user. It’s supposed to be
the model for like YouTube and stuff.

This is to me the appeal of
podcasts so far because I run

my own website. So SeeminkBiz
on the ChuggaBeafchest.com.

It’s hosted there. I own it.
There is no middle step between

me and the user. So I
make it. I post it. You get it.

You probably are picking your
own podcast app player to do

like a podcast catcher to listen
to the podcast. But that’s it.

That is. And then if the one you have doesn’t
work, there’s going to be a million others

that do. You can just go to the website and
listen to it. All this stuff is available.

Because I am in complete control. It
doesn’t mean that I don’t get sort of the

view. The expanded view of like powerful
algorithms and advertising and stuff.

But it means that this will remain for the user. Now the
insutification of this podcast could absolutely happen. I

start getting advertisers. The advertisers get to a point
where they’re like telling me what I can and cannot say.

We grow to the Joe Rogan experience level of fame where a
company gives me a hundred million dollars. And now I no longer

give a shit about selling other people’s products. I lock
them into like 10, 15 year contracts that they have to pay.

And I give them really bad ads and stuff. And
all I care about is calling back my own. It is

the demise of me as a person, which would be great
because I would end up being rich in the way.

That is kind of where we’re
ending up with this whole

talk is being rich is
actually bad for everything.

So step three, abuse your
business partners to create

value for themselves and
then step four is slowly die.

The bigger the company gets before it hits on
that final sort of downward spiral, the longer it

takes to die. Facebook being an example. It was
so big. It’s still around. It hasn’t died yet.

But I don’t think anyone
considers Facebook a

viable platform for any
sort of serious endeavor.

If you are going to start, you want to be famous, you want to create
content, you want to do a new business. You wouldn’t be like Facebook

is where it’s at. Unless you are like targeting, I can honestly
older people who just never understood that you can leave Facebook.

I am a 12 year Reddit user. I am actively
looking for an alternative. I would enjoy.

That’s not a common attitude. Someone who’s
invested sort of the time investment fallacy.

The idea is that like when you go to buy a car,
they try to keep you there for as long as possible

because the longer you spend doing something,
the more you actually want it to be valuable.

They will give you a shitty deal. You have been
there for three hours. You will take that deal

so you don’t feel like you waste your time. You
should always get up and walk out at least once.

If you are going to buy a car, take
the deal and be like, “Oh, there is the

tricks.” I don’t know why I am talking
about car dealerships all of them.

The guy gives you a deal. He says,
“I am going to go talk to my manager. I

am sorry I only have five minutes.”
He goes, “Yeah, only take five minutes.”

It is giving three minutes to get up and just start
walking away. See how quickly he comes back. If he

loses the paperwork and has to do it again, I don’t
want to buy a car from someone who loses the paperwork.

See how quickly he finds that
paperwork. It is all tricks to get

you invested in a bad deal so
you are less willing to examine it.

I have been at Reddit for 12
years. It would be so easy to just

maintain the status quo. Stay
ahead Reddit for another 12 years.

Despite how bad it gets, just make excuses
to myself. But I value my time. So the

instant that starts to happen, I start looking
for alternatives. Not everyone does that.

You might be like,
“Well, Facebook, Reddit,

they are so big. They
are never going to die.”

Do you remember Dig? The IGG. Dig was a competitor to
Reddit back in the day. It was in the exact same position.

It was actually in the dominant position for a while.
Barely anyone remembers Dig anymore. It was a long time ago.

If you were young, you would never
have heard of it. It is sort of along the

same lines as 9G. There used to be basically
the 3 websites, 9G. Dig and Reddit.

They were actually all
competing against each other

to be the dominant one.
Reddit kind of came out ahead.

My space, similar trajectory.
It got bought. It became

big, advertising stuff.
Then it collapsed in on itself.

Like I said, Facebook is
still around only because it

is going to take longer for
an entity that large to die.

When I think about
Facebook, what are they doing

recently? They were in
competition with Instagram.

Zuckerberg actually said it
is better to buy than compete.

They bought Instagram and
they just try to make that.

Now, Instagram is struggling
to compete against its

main competitors, which
is TikTok and other stuff.

They are all mimicking each other
instead of competing. Meta is coming

out with VR stuff. If it comes out
from meta, I don’t even pay attention.

That is meta, Facebook has
become such a secondary entity in the

world of technology that I’m
going to take it seriously anymore.

I have a Facebook account. I
don’t check it. People have sent me

messages. It has been months before
I have actually responded to messages.

I have a Facebook account for
an international campaign. I hate

using it. This absolutely despises
everything about Facebook.

I never really wanted to join the first
place. My friends were all like, everyone

has a Facebook account. You join so
we can talk and stuff. Never got into it.

Now, in a situation where we
have Instagram versus TikTok versus

YouTube, they are all trying to
find the edge and mimic each other.

TikTok is starting extending its play
times to compete with YouTube. It has just

offered me, I think, the 20 minute Mark,
which is a full podcast most of the time.

YouTube created shorts, which is
just TikTok, Instagram created reels,

which is just TikTok. They are all
trying to compete with each other.

They are all trying to compete
for the advertising that comes with

those things, but they are all
going through a similar process.

This is the inshidification of all of them. Instead of being
true to themselves and their identity and what they do and

what they brought to the people who are their initial users,
they are now like we need to compete for advertising dollars.

I actually think if YouTube, TikTok had
stuck to what it was originally, short form

30 second, one minute videos or whatever,
it would have maintained what it was.

It would actually again be delivering stuff
to users. I am noticing there is more ads

when I go on Instagram reels and stuff, there
is more ads, and then the YouTube algorithm.

It is just the real is not interesting to
me. The biggest problem they have is

they can’t roll back. First of all, you
would have to admit you made a mistake.

Reddit would have to say it
was a mistake for us to take

away the API. We are just
going to leave it the way it is.

We are going to roll things back
with less advertising and make

it better for users, which are
deliver a better user experience.

That would lose the money. The
admitting a mistake is almost impossible

for these corporations to do. You
can never admit you made a mistake.

Then secondary is money
is now the primary focus. It is

not serving the users of the
platform. That is capitalism.

I said Facebook instead of competing against Instagram,
just bought Instagram. That is not competition. Capitalism

as a philosophy is based on competition. It says the
market will balance itself. New competitors will come in.

It is just the modern version
of capitalism is almost based on

behemoths becoming monopolies
in everything but actual existence.

There are other companies that
will compete against Amazon but

they are not competition. There
are telecommms in North America.

There is like two. One for
East Coast, one for West

Coast. They don’t actually
compete with each other.

These companies want a monopoly.
They claim to be capitalists but they

actually want a monopoly. They don’t
want to compete with other companies.

They will just buy out other companies.
Right now we have the EA. It is Microsoft.

I think the EA is the
only game in video game,

technology and games and
exclusives and stuff like that.

Which is anti-capitalist. But it is
because they want to get all the

money. The only way to get all the
money is to be the only game in town.

But then you are now not
actually talking about capitalism

anymore. That is part of
the adjudification process.

Billionaires espouse the glory of
capitalism because they become billionaires

but then do everything they can to not
actually partake or compete in capitalism.

That is something that
people need to think about.

Mark Zuckerberg and
Elon Musk recently. This

is just getting into
the secondary issue.

They started a beef.

So basically Facebook has announced
it is going to make a Twitter clone.

So again, we are not going to
do something original and not our

idea. Twitter is in trouble
because Elon Musk has taken over.

We are going to make our
own Twitter and everyone

is going to love it. I
barely even pay attention.

I didn’t find out about the meta-tutor
clone until this morning when I was

actually checking that I got all my
information about Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.

Elon Musk obviously heard
about this. Started doing what he

does on Twitter. So it is
childish insults. That kind of stuff.

He said, “I will take you all fight
you because he is five years old.”

Zuckerberg, who has been studying
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, said like location.

He put a big stupid picture on
the Internet. He is a tough guy.

And then Musk agreed.

So I feel like society
or civilizations come

full circle because we
used to fight to survive.

We used to fight other tribes
and stuff to survive. It was

very important for men to
be strong and fight each other.

For survival. Then we had civilization
and we tried to pull it back a notch.

And now we have gone so far the other way. We have actually
come all around full circle where the upper strata of

society, the billionaires of this world, now feel like it is
perfectly acceptable to fight each other to prove something.

I guess to prove their men. I actually have
a secondary thought that once you become in

sort of the billionaire class, you actually
get this idea that nothing can ever hurt you.

So saying I will fight you. Part of your
brain goes, but I will never get hurt, nothing

bad will ever happen to me because you are
so insulated from the rest of the world.

I did actually want to look into
the seriousness, the nature of this

match. What would it look like? So
Musk is 51 years old, same age as me.

He’s had no training that I
know of. He’s 6’1″, so he’s 1″

taller than me, and he weighs
200 pounds, weighs about the same.

He is essentially a cruiserweight.
He’s a big boy. So being a

big boy means you come with a
certain amount of inherent power.

Zuckerberg, he’s 39, so he’s got used,
he’s got a little… but again, I think

once we get to 41, the differences are
there, but it’s not going to be significant.

He has been studying
B.J. Jane, he’s actually

pretty good. He did a
Silicon Valley tournament.

He got gold and silver in two categories.
He was fighting featherweight.

Featherweight is 126 pounds, it’s like
56 kilos maybe. So you have Musk who is

90 kilos plus fighting a guy who is
57 kilos, basically two thirds his mass.

Cage matches are going to
start standing. So again, I was

trying to take this seriously.
Who would actually win?

Because everyone’s like
Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg,

because he’s actually training,
he’s actually doing this stuff.

But he’s a tiny, tiny man,
and he might be good, but

if you’re good in B.J. Jane,
you’re good on the ground.

Now I’m thinking Musk’s only chances don’t go to the
ground. So when Zuckerberg rushes up to him, he’s going

to go for like a leg, like a tackle basically, and try
to get him to the ground so he can’t actually wrestle.

If that is successful, Zuckerberg
wins. If Elon Musk throws big

haymakers, because you got to
remember, Zuckerberg is trained in B.J.

He’s not trained in boxing.
He has no defense. It’s like

I’ve been doing Judo for 40
years. I have never done boxing.

You put me in a boxing ring.
I’m done in seconds. Like an

actual boxer would take me
down so fast it would be ridiculous.

You put a boxer into a Judo suit.
I would take him down in seconds.

It’s not like diminishing the
value of any of the martial arts.

But what you have is the fight
start standing up. You have two

untrained fighters in standing
fighting. It’s going to look ridiculous.

Zuckerberg has one
opportunity, and that’s get

Elon Musk on his ass
as quickly as possible.

Now, because Elon Musk,
I’m assuming, is out of shape in

all aspects, because I’ve
seen his body without a shirt on.

I bet it would actually be pretty good. I bet
Zuckerberg could run around the back, just

grab him and kick his ankles, or kick him
in the back knees, or push him really hard.

And he would fall down. But Musk would have
one chance. If he could hit Zuckerberg once

with it with just a wild shot, I bet he would
put Zuckerberg down right there and then.

So it’s very hard. If I was a betting
man, I would still put my money

on Zuckerberg, but not as
confidently as everyone else was talking.

Because BJJ has a very good reputation now.
And again, I think that is earned.

But I think people misunderstand
how BJJ starts standing to groundwork.

And there’s every sport has rules.
And once you work outside those rules,

you are essentially untrained again
until you relearn what you’re doing.

They would have a training
period. My understanding is that Elon

Musk’s mother has been
posting online that the fight is off.

That she’s convinced Musk not to
do it, something like that. There’s been

a lot of jokes about Elon Musk’s
mommy. He says he’s not allowed to fight.

He’s not allowed to play rough
with the other billionaires. Dana

White is, I think, president if you
have to see something like that.

He says, okay, it was so offensive
to me. He said, this would be

a massive fight. It would be one
of the biggest fights in history.

It would be an amazing
thing we could do.

Imagine the money we
would make for charity.

Now, if you took out the
four charity part, I think

he’s being honest. Imagine
the money we would make.

How much? What percentage
of that’s going to go to

charity? Nothing. I did
see someone else posted.

We’re in a society where the
Roth child or something took

their vast fortune to build
libraries and schools and stuff.

Now, we have two of the richest men
in the world want to do a cage match.

They’ve taken their vast fortunes and
they’re fighting like basically children.

Which is ridiculous. Now, I, of
course, wanted to see them beat

the crap out of each other and I
would love to see them get hurt.

Which takes me to the
final point of this weird, weird

podcast topic, the
inshidification of all of society.

Why is there no empathy for these men?
These billionaires specifically.

Because last week, we
had the submarine that

imploded with a group
of billionaires on board.

And the Internet went wild
with incredibly cruel jokes.

Now, I laughed along with
everyone else about how awful it was.

I saw some of the videos about inside
and there was like, it’s carbon fiber.

And again, I don’t know enough
about material sciences. I know

enough about carbon fire
that you don’t drill a hole in it.

To mount some of the
screens. So, if you drill a hole into

carbon fiber, you’re basically
weakening the entire structure.

Now, I know that’s not probably what crushed
the whole thing. But it’s irrelevant.

I know if I, as a complete
amateur, can recognize a mistake.

Then anyone else with
actual study or knowledge

should have seen how
that was going to be.

And then we heard about the guy saying,
oh, you know, this is an unsafe craft.

We can’t sail it in the
ocean. People are going to die.

The president of that submarine
company says, you’re fired.

And then a week later, it implodes with him
on board. Again, no sympathy and empathy.

Why is that a thing? And
I was looking around to

actually see why do
people not feel any empathy?

Because this is a human being
died. Everyone had a moment

when they found out there
was a 19 year old kid on board.

Now, he is the son of a
billionaire. But a 19 year

old kid hasn’t technically
done that much wrong.

Of course, he maybe
has. But we’re like, he’s not

the problem. The
billionaires are the problem.

And we feel no empathy for them. So I
actually looked into empathy a little bit.

And the thing that I found
out is that empathy is not a

function of an individual,
which I was very surprised by.

I’ve always thought that empathy would
have been like, it’s something I feel.

Empathy is a function of society and
community. So it’s about relationships.

So when I’m online, I’m trying to
think of things that make me cry.

Dogs. So we got Dave in the corner.
And I see these dogs being rescued.

And I will feel myself tear up.
I have a great amount of empathy.

But it’s because of my deep connection
that stupid looking dog in the corner.

As a society, as a
community, as a group, you

have empathy for
people you can relate to.

So I relate to those Facebook
videos of dogs being rescued.

And it makes me almost cry because I have
this deep connection to the dogs I had when

I was a kid, to the dog I have now that I
spent a huge amount of time taking care of.

I mean, you can see we spend all
our time together when I’m at home.

And that extends to my
coworkers, my friends.

There are people I
understand and I care about.

That is where empathy
comes from. The nature of a

billionaire is that they
immediately create stratification.

And they try to separate themselves
from society, community at large.

So the empathy, society
at large has for people

who separated themselves,
goes down dramatically.

And this was very kind of
revealing to once you separated

yourself from society,
knowing that people are not

a society, no one
gives a shit if you die. I

bet other billionaires
were very upset by this.

But of course, their voice isn’t as big
as a billion people making jokes on Reddit.

So that disconnect they create
by trying to say I’m rich, so

I’m a higher class person,
you’re poor, so you’re lower class.

Is why no one feels any empathy
for these billionaires dying.

Now, for me, I think the primary problem
was actually he wasn’t listening to anyone.

So this billionaire,
there’s another problem

with billionaires as sort
of a class or a group.

They’ve gotten so used to being right.
It’s almost like pop star syndrome where

everyone tells you you’re great, you’re
amazing, you’re great, you’re amazing.

That’s really bad for you because
then you start to think you’re

really great and amazing and
really smart and you know everything.

Where you may have specific knowledge, you don’t know
everything. So you see pop stars and they’ll give political

commentary and it’s just so confused and weird and it’s
because they know pop music, they don’t know politics.

They know A, they know B. So it’s like I, what do I know about well,
I could talk quite in depth about the cage match they were doing,

but because no one has spent the entirety of my life telling me I’m
really good, I’m really smart, I’m really good, I’m really smart.

I don’t think I know everything. Anyways, billionaires are shit.
I think that might be the conclusion. It’s the separation and then

because everyone around them is sort of yes men, they get into pop
star syndrome where they think they know everything, but they don’t.

So they won’t admit they’ve made a mistake very much like I’m
talking about Reddit at the beginning of the podcast. They

can’t admit they’ve made a mistake, they can’t roll anything
back, they have to forge forward with what they’re doing.

There was a set of emails I saw released about the submarine thing and
the set of emails basically said look I’m not 100% confident in this

and the guys like I actually find that offensive that you think this
isn’t safe and the guys like I did some research this doesn’t seem safe.

Therefore I don’t want to ride your crazy death trap and the guys like I find that offensive not factually
argumentative I don’t have anything I can say to you personally to change your mind. I’m personally offended and that

was supposed to mean something. You should risk your life in this thing you think may or may not kill you because
you don’t want me to be offended because that’s more important than your life and that is the underlying message.

So this in billionaires and
the stratification of society

is primarily to me the in
certification of all things.

So it’s how do we get back from that well there is no simple
answer because now society is set up to keep this going in the

people the billionaires who do have a great deal of power they
want to keep a boy going because that’s how they stay billionaires.

So honestly I don’t have an answer but when you see a service like
Reddit and it goes through a blackout everyone should quit Reddit and it

would collapse and everyone should quit Twitter and it would collapse
and then the Internet could go back to being sort of a freer entity.

Yes, we would have to find things it would be harder
search engines might not be better. We won’t use

Google anymore will have to use a new search engine
that’s actually better and working towards users.

But if you’re aware of and shitification
and the reality of the user actually

has all the power because as soon as
you stop using it all that power goes away.

My space is basically gone because no one
uses anymore if everyone would just drop

Facebook it would be gone tomorrow if everyone
dropped Reddit it would be gone tomorrow.

And then something else two or three services
would spring up and try to take their place and

then we would be back to actual capitalism actual
competition and things might actually improve.

[Music]

So that was a little experiment I have been
struggling to come up with original ideas.

Don’t say sorry I want people
to do stuff I again this isn’t me

complaining about you this is
me complaining about my inability.

The mistake they made was
making an end date in the protest.

Ah this is it the end date was people are saying
that I actually disagree I think that’s irrelevant if

what they needed was when they said we’re going to
remove the mods all the mods on mass should have quit.

Should be like fine go ahead a completely
unmoderated Reddit would collapse in hours.

I mean honestly hours there
would be an influx of all really gross

shit there would be an influx of
all these kind of things happening.

They would have no control over it they wouldn’t have the staff
to keep the website under control because of the nature of

Reddit if there is no modification exactly what I said though for
John is what it would become and no advertiser would touch it.

They’re already running it a deficit
they already run it dead so if they’re

already running it dead that would
collapse as soon as all the users left.

A long time ago I did the same thing I was talking about
the monopolies and stuff of Internet users in America and

like there’s basically you move to an area there’s really
only one Internet provider and it’s always stupid expensive.

If you could organize the people in that region to all quit on
the same day and I mean actually quit on the same day and you

would have to go two weeks without Internet let’s say I bet those
prices would get super fucking reasonable super fucking quick.

The problem is the organization never happens and like
these mods they’re committed to what they’re doing

so that doesn’t happen and that’s that’s to me where
the problems arise is because people are disorganized.

But if the mods of Reddit would all quit today you would either have
no Reddit or a way better Reddit tomorrow. It was a bit messier than I

wanted but that was essentially three or four points from the news media
that I put together into kind of a structure and try to talk about it.

It’s not a bad idea I think I
can smooth it out essentially

was three ideas it was
the insitification of Reddit.

The cage match in billionaires
and then why no one had empathy

so those are my three concepts
that I wanted to put in there.