#33 John Lumgair | Are our phones spying on us?, creating an animated series, the internet's impact on our wold - Bang Two Three Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
- Send the thousand dollars in Bitcoin to this address.

(00:03):
- Please!
And what do you expect the mother to do in that situation?
- That'd be a lot.
I don't know how to use Bitcoin.
- Have you seen the,
like what a lot of people experience with phones,
which is like, hey, I bought a brand new phone.
I don't own a cat,

(00:23):
but I was talking to someone at the coffee shop
about their cat,
and now all I get is cat ads on my phone.
Have you experienced that?
- Very similar.
So, experience we had that,
we had a mom and a little boy come round,
the little boy's name was Luigi.
And we hadn't touched any phones during the whole time

(00:45):
it was there.
The end of the day, look at the phone,
and I'm getting ads from eBay
about Mario and Luigi figures.
And I'm like, okay,
these guys are really all listening.
(laughs)
I don't understand how are people not upset about this
because by now I think it's common knowledge.

(01:05):
- I think people aren't upset because they feel powerless.
I just think,
because we're always switching off these things,
but they just turn themselves on again.
And it's just annoying.
- To me, I kind of think of it like crack
because it's like,
people who smoke crack,
they're well aware of the dangers.

(01:26):
They know what happens to people who don't stop smoking crack,
but crack is so damn amazing.
Let's just be honest that they're like,
screw it, I don't care about the side effects.
That's the thing,
because listen, we could easily just go back to a flip phone,
but smartphones are just so awesome.
- Yeah, well there is that.

(01:46):
There's a jazz critic called Ted Joya,
and he calls it the dopamine,
he calls all these companies like Facebook and Google.
The dopamine cartel.
And they just get you hooked.
And it's all about distracting you,
but ultimately that's not a good end for anyone.
- Do you think that these people

(02:09):
are the big tech companies sleep well at night?
- I think some do.
I think some are quite psychopathic.
I think someone like Mark Zuckerberg,
I think he probably sleeps quite well.
But I think Elon Musk is more conflicted
a complex figure than most of them,
because he's always warning of the dangers of stuff,

(02:32):
and he's clearly conflicted about the whole thing.
And yet he is part of it.
So he probably doesn't,
I don't think he sleeps anywhere.
I think he's always working.
So he doesn't have the issue of not sleeping well at night.
- Yeah, he's never slept well
because he sleeps on the floor of his car factories.
But that's a good point.

(02:54):
I really do believe people like Mark Zuckerberg, for example,
they're smart enough and they're aware enough
that they know exactly what they're doing.
- Even they absolutely do.
- They absolutely do.
And me, I guess I would consider myself a normal guy,
like if I see people hurting, I hurt.

(03:15):
I'm guessing that this thing just doesn't exist
in people like Mark Zuckerberg.
Or it's so deeply suppressed.
'Cause it was when they, there was some research
that came out that proved the Instagram
was making young girls suicidal and all this horrible stuff.

(03:37):
And at the same time, this day, this research came out,
they were pushing to make the age of access
to Instagram younger in the congressional hearings
or whatever it was.
I don't know how your system of government works.
And I thought, how could you be doing those two things

(03:58):
at the same time?
What about reflection?
You'd be kind of going, we need to do something
to keep our business alive,
but do so in a way that doesn't cause young girls
to ruin their lives.
- Okay, John.
Okay, John, I'm gonna teleport into Mark Zuckerberg real quick
and I'm gonna set you straight.

(04:19):
- Okay.
Listen, John, listen, look, I understand everything you're saying
is true, but don't tell anyone I'll fucking kill you.
First of all, we use these business tactics to make money.
The whole goal is money.
And guess what we do with that money?
I have donated tens of millions of dollars to charities.

(04:40):
I've fed thousands and thousands of kids who were hungry.
I've taken people off the streets
and that would have never happened
unless I had literally billions of dollars.
- I'm not convinced.
(laughing)
- Listen, John, if you keep talking that way,
I will have you whacked you, mother sucker.

(05:02):
- Well, I am banned from Facebook advertising, so.
- Isn't everything-- - Don't even know what?
- What exactly? - I don't either.
I don't either.
They just banned me and it's like,
hey, it's Tuesday, your ban.
- Yeah, and then you had, do you want to appeal?
Yes.
Your appeal was rejected.
There's no, they don't tell you why.
They don't tell you what you did wrong.

(05:23):
They don't tell you how to make a man's.
You're just, that's it.
- Exactly, that's how you know people like Facebook
are the pretty girl in the room.
Because they can be choosy.
If you ever like tried to advertise on Reddit,
they're like, here's our rules.
And there's like one rule.
It's like, do not show people getting their hair chopped off.
Anything else goes.
Go for it.
But Facebook is like, they're the pretty girl in the room.

(05:45):
And they're like, ooh, you know, you can buy me a drink
but you better like talk smooth to me first.
And oh, I don't like you just because.
I just got the ick because you have a blue shirt on.
And so it's like, I can't wait until the day
where Facebook gets a little bit humbled
and they have to loosen up and they send you that email, John,
because you know it's coming.

(06:06):
It's gonna say, hey, I know your advertising count was banned
but we reviewed it and now you're active.
And not only are you active,
here's a free $10 credit.
(laughs)
They're gonna come kissing your toes.
They're kissing your toes.
The thing is with all of these things,
they've stolen people's data
and so they've got really, really good data.

(06:28):
They've got the best data of anyone.
And they can say, like in this postcode,
we know all the people that are really interested in
this particular podcast,
they're also really interested in
this particular food
and they go to the shops on Thursday afternoon

(06:49):
and they buy this particular.
And so they pull all those things together
and then they've got this amazing data set.
And I don't think a lot of people know
of what you're describing
and what you're saying is essentially,
you can go on Facebook and you can say,
hey, I wanna advertise my thing

(07:10):
to people in the south of London
who are into Harry Potter, also into Nike shoes
and also are like between the ages of 34 and 37.
That's scary.
- Yeah.
And that's why you get these really, really specific

(07:33):
targeted ads that you're like,
that's a bit freaky.
I know, I didn't even think that it was that possible.
In fact, I did a podcast with a guy
who worked in digital marketing
and we had our big 2016 lecture where Trump won
and his whole thesis was that Trump won

(07:55):
because he used micro targeted ads.
This exact tactic that we're talking about.
So what Trump would do is or his campaign
is he would say, hey, listen,
I have an ad about people in the military
and how they're just not treated right
and they need to be paid more.

(08:16):
And you know what?
So I'm gonna go into Facebook
and I'm gonna select just people
who served in the military in the past two years
and I'm gonna show them that ad.
And then I'm gonna have another one for like teachers
saying, hey, you know what teachers you've been set up?
And I'm only gonna show that ad to the teachers.
So his whole thesis, and he was a really smart guy.
His whole thesis was that he utilized this

(08:39):
to where every person who's seen that ad,
it felt like Trump was talking directly to them.
It's crazy.
Obama was the one that started actually.
He did clever targeting ads and I think,
by the time Obama's term was over,
it had just got so much more sophisticated

(09:00):
and Trump was probably the smartest
of smarter to utilize it.
- Yeah.
Do you think like so?
- Or one of his people.
He probably, he probably had just employed
a smart person that knows about that.
- Oh, Dad, do you think Trump was in like
the Facebook ads manager?
- No.
- How do I do this?

(09:21):
(laughing)
- He wouldn't even know any of those things are.
(laughing)
And now that we're the only one of his generation is like,
it's not like.
Exactly.
So is the challenge to,
because I think like you said, the study came out,

(09:41):
Instagram is really hurting young girls.
It breaking news, water is wet.
We've known this for a long time.
Is the challenge that we need to make
something that is better than these social media feeds
like by far that is also healthy?

(10:02):
Like how do you tackle this?
Because like I said, it's tried to get someone off of crack.
- Yeah.
So you cannot compete with,
so everything has to fit with the human nature.
We are wide in a particular way.
So you can't, you can't build a product
that's gonna be, I don't know,

(10:22):
not working with the grain of human nature.
It doesn't matter how you think the world is,
you can't will it to be a way it's not.
That's where I think,
I tend to have more libertarian leanings as a person,
but I think there is some level of,
some level of incentive that the state can give.

(10:47):
And I think banning social media use for people younger
is good.
So I totally agree with Jonathan Heights.
I don't know if you've come across Jonathan Heights.
A social psychologist who's just written a book
and he's got like five recommendations
on that the government should put forward for social media.

(11:09):
He's quite bypassed, Sam, which is quite good.
And there are things like you shouldn't have social media
before you're in secondary school.
You shouldn't have,
I can't remember what they all were now,
but they seem quite sensible things.
So I think a mixture of legislation,

(11:29):
but then I think people do feel sort of a bit sick
after a while.
If you're, if you're doing scrolling,
you go, I have wasted my time and you feel a bit,
it does feel sickening.
It doesn't give you anything
and you're like, I've wasted my time.
And so I think they're quite short shelf life.
Like it wasn't, I deleted all the apps off my phone,

(11:52):
all these things a long time ago.
I mean, I put them all back on again to promote my projects,
but I'm there coming up for as soon as that's over,
but they, yeah, I put, I just deleted them all
'cause I realized it just didn't, didn't do any good.
But I have a sub-stack and I enjoy sub-stack

(12:12):
and it's incentive structure is slightly different.
And I don't feel sick,
if I've spent a long time on sub-stack,
like I do if I'm on the other one.
So maybe the sub-stack kind of business model,
where it's, the users can make money,
the own, their business model is basically subscription based.

(12:34):
So it incentivizes better quality content
and rather than it will be algorithmically kind of generated stuff.
- Isn't that exactly what OnlyFans is?
It's like, hey, I can start my own little business.
And by the way, you don't have to show your feet
and your butthole on OnlyFans.

(12:55):
You can just say, hey, like for example,
some famous person can start at OnlyFans and say,
hey, look, take a peek behind the curtain of my life.
You wanna see what I eat for breakfast and stuff like this.
But just like it seems like everything else,
we take it to the extremes.
And now OnlyFans is just straight up porn site.

(13:18):
- Yeah, so OnlyFans was for anything.
I remember a friend was talking about
tutoring on it.
I'm like, you can't do that now.
And that is the thing of human nature is such
that we were a mixture of being good

(13:39):
and our worst instincts,
both exist simultaneously in a person.
And that is the reality we live in.
So OnlyFans made a decision to allow it to become
like it did and eventually porn takes over.

(13:59):
But they could have made a decision not to do that.
I think Pinterest made some interesting decisions
to limit the kind of content they did,
which probably made them a little less profitable.
But remember the CEO saying, no,
I do have some red lights.
And yeah, so I guess it's,

(14:19):
you can make a lot of money if you did
the goa kind of subscription route and it become porn.
But if you go down a subscription route
and actually you're incentivizing people
to do stuff that's gonna be good for people,
then yeah, that's gonna be more positive.

(14:41):
- I know, unfortunately it seems like everything
that we look at such as these doom scrolling feeds,
the app spying on you is like,
if you really you unveil the curtain
and then you unveil the curtain
and you keep going deeper and deeper and deeper,
it seems like all of these things,
including stuff like I was talking about,
like actual drugs, things like motivations behind

(15:04):
why are people depressed, right?
Suicide stuff like this,
why are people fighting over the best shoes
and why are people going out by these iPhones?
It seems like the root of it all,
all of those things is people's desire for money at all costs.
And it's okay to want money, I want money,

(15:25):
but it's the at all costs thing.
It's hey, Mark Zuckerberg,
and we're just picking on Mark today.
You know what Mark, you are in the target,
please don't kill me.
(laughing)
So like if I'm Mark Zuckerberg,
I can't comprehend, and maybe it's because I'm not rich.
I can't comprehend someone saying,

(15:48):
"Hey, I have $3 billion in the bank,
but you know what, I'm gonna fuck over young teenage girls
to get to $10 billion."
- Yeah.
- I can't understand that.
- Well I guess it's the thing that money,
money's in a way is neutral.
So it's the, it's the line in the Bible where it talks about

(16:11):
the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
And it's the love of money is the problem.
So, you know, if you happen to make a billion
legitimately, and it's all above board,
that's fine, and you can then give it away,
it doesn't hold you, but if you are controlled by it,
then you have to have more and more and more.

(16:31):
And it's like, was it Rockefeller
was asked how much money do you need?
And he said just a little bit more.
And it's that kind of,
that thing that ends up controlling,
it just, it becomes the God, I guess,
and you serve that at all,
and you sacrifice everything to it, and it's pretty grim.

(16:53):
- Can you sympathize with that?
Like have you ever felt that,
or have you ever maybe, like been around somebody
who you can tell has this feeling?
- I have had some people that we've worked for over the years,
that have been a bit like that.
I remember I'm trying to make sure I don't say anything

(17:15):
that would make, incriminate a specific person.
So we did something for a well-known,
someone that's working for a well-known organization,
and they were trying to withhold money that we'd worked for,
and they were all like, oh, it's really, really low budget.

(17:36):
And one of my colleagues went,
was so fed up with not having the money,
went to the person's house,
and they had this very luxurious house,
and eventually we got paid by a Coot's account,
and I don't know if a Coot's account means anything to you,
but it's, you can't do any,

(18:01):
you can't bank with Coot unless you were ridiculously rich.
And so it's so that this person was incredibly rich,
they lived in a big house,
and they, their wealth clearly came from treating people
lower down the food chain, really patty.
But I think, and it's not about how wealthy someone is,

(18:23):
'cause you can have poor people that are so driven by money,
like that becomes their thing.
But most of the people I tried,
are kind of like attracts like,
are working creative work,
so people who work in creative industries,
they tend to be driven because they wanna make

(18:43):
beautiful or interesting things,
and that becomes the,
they'll probably step on people to do that,
but that's their end goal rather than the money.
Money is, yeah.
- I've always wondered with that,
I thought about it,
I wonder if is it A, it takes,

(19:05):
like the person was either born with it or they became it.
I don't know if someone was born with just like this,
fuck everybody, I will do whatever I will cut,
whatever throat to get the dollar,
or is it something that whenever people become very wealthy,
maybe they become addicted,
because it does seem like,

(19:27):
like if you've ever followed a person,
maybe a small YouTuber,
a small artist or something like that,
or even a small actor, podcaster,
it seems like whenever they get big and rich,
they get weird.
Do you notice that?
- It does happen to a lot of people, particularly when they're young,
so it's interesting that if someone kind of makes it

(19:51):
when they are much, much older in life,
it doesn't seem to have a bad effect,
I think if you've got a lot of people around you,
constantly telling you you're amazing,
you might start to believe them.
(laughing)
And money has the effect of making people think

(20:11):
that they are better than other people,
'cause if they can make $10,000 in 10 minutes,
and you've got someone else
who spends a whole year scrubbing floors
until their hands are bleeding,
that is very easy if that person who makes it in a few minutes
to think of themselves as better than that person

(20:34):
that was scrubbing the floors until their hands were bleeding,
but actually, person who's scrubbing their floors
has probably done more to help humanity off the time.
(laughing)
- Yes.
- Stopping diseases spreading, you know?
- Oh yeah, totally.
So John, do you think if I gave you a billion dollars cash,
after taxes, everything, right now,

(20:56):
how do you think you would be different
as a person one year from now?
- I would, I don't think it would particularly change me
'cause I don't think I'd hang on to the money,
so a lot of it would just go into making projects,
so that be like all the different things I wanna make,
they would just get made,
but I would, yeah, I would be wanting to support,

(21:21):
support different people's projects,
I'd wanna help people with it,
so it wouldn't be, I don't think I'd hang on to it.
- But what if, okay, so you're a billionaire there, right?
So everything changes, so let's say you make your projects
and you go to like a black, white tie dinner,
like a suit and tie dinner

(21:42):
with some of the most powerful people around the world,
celebrities, rich politicians, and stuff like that,
and you say, oh well, oh,
I have never, ever been around something like that.
The women are beautiful, and guess what?
Now they think you are the most sexy guy in the room
for some odd reason, and they are just like giving you

(22:03):
the cocktails, they're like touching you on the shoulder,
and this is a teaching you never got,
you don't think that that could like have an effect on you at all?
- I think it would scare the living daylights out of me,
I think I'd get out of that place quick.
Maybe if I was a bit younger, I might have drawn in,

(22:24):
but now I've lived enough life that I'd just be terrified
over like, I don't want, 'cause these people,
they don't like you, that I think one of the things
that keeps you grounded is your family, your friends.
Yeah, I think my wife would just totally take the mic out

(22:45):
of me if I got drawn into that, I'm a world,
I've got enough friends that would just be ridiculing me,
my family WhatsApp group would just be panning me,
I just don't think I can get away with it.
- Well, when they'd be like, hey, John, can you give me
like a hundred bucks?
Isn't that what they'd do?
- No, they'd just be laughing at me,

(23:06):
because I'd become everything I'd don't want to be.
- Oh, man, that is awesome.
I think, yeah, I think you're making a great point.
Since you've been around, you've seen some stuff going down,
it's like you're a lot more mature now,

(23:26):
and so you can kind of like spot this stuff, it's like,
hey, you know what, I seen this exact same pretty girl
in the coffee shop yesterday, and she looked at me and said,
you, and now all of a sudden she wants to come home with me,
and I think like you can see past,
and I was like, oh, okay, what changed the money?
So I gotta get the fuck out of here.

(23:49):
- And also, I'm married, so.
I just don't, double reason not to go down that road.
- How long have you been married?
- Six years, six years, and just, and a month.
- What's the keto happy marriage?

(24:13):
- I think having the same kind of world view in a way,
so if you're pushing in the same direction broadly in life,
then it makes things a lot easier.
Yeah, probably, and then, I mean, it's also,

(24:36):
I'm not very good at it, but I think being self-sacrificial
is a good key.
Yeah, we're very, we're both very laid back, so.
I think we have an easier time if it than many,
but then who knows what's around the corner?

(24:56):
But, yeah, that laid back is always so good,
especially in, like women, in my opinion,
because the worst quality that a woman can have
is if she nags me.
And a nagger, like, because honestly, I respect nagers,

(25:17):
because they are so skilled, like, you can do everything right,
you can check all the boxes, right?
But they'll still find something to get you for us,
like, why'd you put the toilet paper that way?
I told you, oh my gosh, you always put the toilet paper that way.
Do you even love me?
I hate nagers, so a laid back woman, I think is just,

(25:39):
it's a beautiful thing and I'm so happy you found her.
How'd you all meet?
We were a, so I knew her boss a little bit,
but we were a conference in Poland,
and we were arguing about everything and anything.
We'd love arguing, by the way.
We argue for sport, and if we,
we'll all also flip opinions,

(26:00):
just to, so all argue one position, then we'll argue.
So we enjoyed arguing and that kind of continued when we got back to London,
so we'll just, yeah.
Is London the best city on the world in on earth?
Well, I've not been to every city on earth.
So taking, taking that into consideration,

(26:26):
I think it's, I think it's the most exciting city.
It's not the most beautiful, although it is,
it's always very alive, there's always something happening,
and it is suffering a bit because it's,
it's got so expensive, and once things get too expensive,

(26:49):
a lot of kind of crazy creative start-up things don't happen as frequently,
because people can't risk as much,
and I feel London is almost a victim of his own success there,
but there's such a mix, and it's such a global place,
and so you, you can walk down the street,

(27:11):
and you can see, I don't know, hundreds of different nationalities,
and you can meet with, you have meet people from all over the place,
and ask them, oh, what's it really like,
and what's your opinion on this, and you can really hear some,
as long as people trust you,
you're here such a range of opinions on so many topics,

(27:31):
and I find that really exciting,
and so London has that to offer,
and I'm just thinking about the cities,
what other cities have I really enjoyed when I've visited?
- Yeah, what's the name of that?
- I've really enjoyed Bogota in Colombia,

(27:53):
partly because you've got all the mountains,
you've got the Andes along the side,
and then you've got these beautiful kind of baroque
and buildings, and it's people are very friendly.
I enjoyed Manaus in Brazil,
partly because it's so bizarre you've got beautiful opera house

(28:15):
in the middle of jungle,
and that's, it's quite hard to get your head round.
I can't imagine living there, but it's quite fun.
But yeah, in terms of an exciting city to live in,
I don't know, I really don't know.
- Have you ever been to New York City?
- I haven't.
It's the city in the States that would most attract me.

(28:38):
I've been to LA twice, and the people are great.
I like the people, I like the attitude,
and I like the can-do feel, I love all of that,
but as a city, it's pretty ugly,
(laughing)
it's a car park.
(laughing)

(28:59):
The weather's nice, but yeah, it's just this car park,
and that's, it's a pity, really.
I think I'd prefer New York to LA,
even though I've not been to New York,
so I feel like New York would be more like London,
there'd be a bit more energy,
and I hear that New Yorkers are straight to the point,

(29:22):
and a little bit rude, and I probably would enjoy that.
- Why would you enjoy that?
You like being rude?
- It's not that I like being rude,
but I like people being straight,
so I don't like people who talk around,
and the kind of fakeness that you get in a lot of places,
I like, and if New Yorkers are really straight

(29:43):
to the point like their reputation,
then I think I'd probably enjoy that.
- Yeah, I've been, and I think New York is probably
my favorite city.
I would love to go to London,
but I think that my impression is,
yes, it does have a lot of energy,
and everyone is just busy, everyone is busy,

(30:05):
so they don't have the time to be like,
to like stay in behind you and be like,
oh, excuse me, sir, could you please move out the way?
Like they'll just kind of like nudge you and,
hey, if you're not in line at Starbucks,
then get the fuck outta here, right?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
What does it feel like to have the best accent in the entire world?

(30:26):
- I don't think I do.
You see, I think, do I erase,
or do I make ends?
So I should, or maybe the scots,
and my ancestry is Scottish,
but sadly, you don't get an accent via ancestry.
My wife's ancestry is Jamaican,
but she's got a London accent.

(30:49):
So yeah, I think it's the Irish or the Jamaicans have it,
I have to say.
- Okay, you're making great points here.
This is actually great,
'cause Jamaicans, you could hear them talk about anything
and it sounds cool, but the,
like the European, London type of accent,

(31:09):
the sophisticated accent, what I've noticed is that people
will put this accent into movies,
even though it kind of, there's no reason it's there,
because it conveys a certain level of sophistication.
And I think Dune is an example of that.
They have some characters in there
who have this very sophisticated accent like you.
They sound very smart,

(31:30):
even though the book never mentions
that they're from that part of the world.
- We often, I mean, the thing with the English accents
is that often, donating class,
so there's a kind of, there is a meaning
that they often have, so you can go,
okay, this person is from this background,

(31:51):
or that background, just from hearing their accent.
And which is a bit of a curse in many ways,
because people get pigeonholed by the way they sound,
and I don't think that's good,
'cause you're not judging someone on who they really are.
But, and I think, traditionally in Hollywood films,

(32:15):
you've got a bad guy, what accent do you wanna give them?
Do you wanna give them an accent of one of the countries
you're currently in conflict with?
That could be potentially an issue.
Or do you wanna make them British?
And therefore, British day mind being bad guys,
it kind of, it carries history with it.

(32:40):
I don't know.
It tends to be the bad guys that we play.
- Yeah, that is true.
I just think at least here in the States,
whenever someone hears you talk,
they think, wow, sophisticated, a suit,
probably drinks wine, smokes the guards,
has his life together.

(33:01):
They hear me talk, which I have like a Southern country accent,
right there, like, oh wow, he probably sleeps with his sister.
(laughing)
Well, that's a prejudice though
that we would have inherited from your films.
(laughing)
- You're right.

(33:21):
- You gave us that prejudice.
But what do you think of Daniel Craig's,
I don't know if you've seen Daniel Craig in the glass,
oh was it called?
It's a murder mystery type thing.
He plays a Southern accent and to me it sounds incredible,

(33:43):
but it's because it's not my accent, I don't know.
- Yeah, I'm not watch that.
I'll definitely check it out.
- I'm just googling his name quickly.
Glass onion.
- Glass, no, I haven't.
- And Daniel Craig did that?
- Yeah, I mean, to me, his accent sounded tot,

(34:05):
if I didn't know who he was,
I would have thought he was native,
but maybe to locals, they're just like,
"Uh, no."
- Well, I think you're right,
there is some, at least we're talking about people
from Southern part of America.
There is like different, like, flavors, right?
Just like I'm sure there's even different accents

(34:27):
in London or whatever, but--
- Yeah, yeah, you can tell there's so many different accents.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
So I think like my favorite Southern accent
is like the classic cowboy, the American cowboy
who rides a horse and laughs those cows.
I love that, they got that twang.

(34:48):
And man, I'll tell you what,
we just gonna be eating tonight.
But I am from, I am like, Cajun, right?
I'm from Southern Louisiana, it's like French roots.
And so I have like the worst sound in accent,
like Southern Louisiana is like a weird type of area
where it's like kind of isolated,

(35:09):
like that accent doesn't really exist anywhere else.
So I think it is very off-putting.
I think if, whenever you come to the States,
do people treat you good?
- Yeah, so I've been three times,
I've been to LA twice and then I went to Florida
for 24 hours because I was flying to Bogota,

(35:32):
and it was a way to do a really cheap flight.
And people thought I was much more intelligent than I was.
And what was very interesting was when I went to Florida,
I met this homeless guy and got chatting with him.
And I had a horrible breakfast that I ended up giving

(35:54):
the whole breakfast to him because it really didn't like it.
And got him a bottle of water.
And I think because of my accent, he felt that he could talk to me,
and he was talking about how he was a black guy,
and he was saying how a bar was let us all down

(36:14):
and all of that.
And I was really, I don't know,
I don't know whether he had spoken so freely
had I had an American accent, I don't know.
- Yeah, we're obsessed with politics
from the richest of the rich to the homeless people.
They're like, I'm homeless because of politicians.

(36:34):
And I don't know, is it like that over there?
Do you know when you go into coffee shops,
do you hear everyone talking about politics and elections
and stuff?
- So we used to have a saying that kind of was true,
that it was in polite to talk about politics or religion.
And then, but politics has become much more tribal

(36:57):
in recent years, and we've inherited, inherited,
we've borrowed, we've imported a number of your culture
or stuff, but it doesn't even map always
onto the British landscape, and I'm just like,
yeah, so I think people talk about politics,
but they're also weird by it a lot here, I just think,

(37:21):
and our political parties are less,
I don't know, we're not as tribal, I don't think is,
but you hear, there's a, are this person as a registered Democrat
or this person as a registered Republican?
And like, yeah, we don't really have like,
registered Tories or registered labor voters

(37:41):
or registered dems or whatever.
And also we have a multi party,
so we are a two party system kind of,
but we're not really, so the next election,
which will be almost certainly won by our left wing party,
the Labour party, it will be really determined

(38:02):
by what happens in the Scottish National Party,
'cause they could probably do badly,
and their votes will go to Labour in Scotland, which will,
and then we've got other smaller parties,
they take votes from a big party
and that can swing the whole thing over,

(38:23):
and even with Kennedy, he's not gonna have such an impact
on the election in the States,
and he's probably the most influential third party person
you've had for many years.
So our, yeah, the fact we do have other voices,

(38:45):
I think makes things a little bit less,
goody's versus baddies or whatever.
Yeah, I hate that shit.
So do I, and I really want it to end.
You know how, I don't,
I haven't really said down my thought about this,
but how I think it, quote unquote ends,

(39:05):
first of all, I think 90% of it is purely online,
and I think how it ends is just kind of
by doing what we're doing, we just talk to people.
I'm not a political person at all, I just opt out,
but I find that whenever people even if they have
widely different views on politics, religion, or anything,

(39:28):
they sit down and talking to us like,
oh wow, we have so much in common.
Like, yeah, you hate getting up early
and having to go work out, me too.
Like, oh, you want to eat pizza every day and not get fat?
Me too, and I just think that if we just talk to people,
man, people are awesome.
More, 99% of people are really cool.
But also encouraging people to argue the best argument

(39:53):
they possibly can for the other side of the argument.
Instead of thinking, oh, those people are stupid
or whatever, saying, or what's the best argument
for their position?
Forces you to start thinking, and I think,
and I think there's also, we might all agree

(40:14):
that we want to reduce poverty.
And there'll be those on the left say,
well, the best way to reduce poverty is to have
lots of government programs to create a bigger safety net
so that no one ever goes below a certain level
and will do lots of government schemes to help pull people up.

(40:35):
And then those on the right will be saying,
no, no, we want to end poverty too.
And our way is that we want to liberalise the system
so that more money can be business,
more businesses can grow.
They can employ more people.
Those people can have dignity, incentive to work
and they'll do well.
And the good faith people on both sides,

(40:57):
genuinely want to solve the problem poverty,
but they have completely different roots to it.
And sometimes you'll get you, you're stupid
or you really hate poor people or you,
and it's like, well, actually, if you really listen,
the thoughtful people, they'll have their reasons
and they might be wrong, but they have their reasons.

(41:20):
Exactly.
I've always, and that's such a beautiful point too.
And I'm so glad you said that.
I think if you just take something simple like taxes,
one person wants to raise taxes.
Like you said, you should, you say, okay, hey, Stephen,
you want to raise taxes, that's cool.
Could you make a case on why like raising taxes may be a bad thing?
And they say, oh, no, what are you talking about?

(41:43):
That's terrible.
Then it's like, okay, you're not advocating for something.
You're an occult.
You are brainwashed, bro.
Like this, you have to, I think like normal,
intelligent people and we do this every day.
We do this in our everyday life.
It's like, hey, I want that pizza.
Okay, that's my position.
I want the pizza.
But it's like, I can easily make a argument

(42:03):
on why eating that pizza tonight is a bad idea.
We do this all the time.
But with like taxes or something like that,
people are just like, it's this way or the highway.
And it's like you said, if you have a strongly held position
that matters to you, that matters to you
because we're busy, we don't have time
to do mental gymnastics all day.
If you have one that really matters to you,

(42:24):
something that you're advocating for,
you should be able to put forth at least a decently
compelling argument for the other side.
And then you feel to debunk it, right,
with your own facts or whatever.
Yeah, absolutely. I think they're so, so important.
And the other thing I've realized is,
I've seen more clips from the states of this

(42:46):
where they'll list a whole load of policies
and they'll go up to people who are Trump supporters
and they'll say, these are the policies
that Hillary Clinton had.
And they're like, oh, they're terrible.
And they're like, yeah, they're Trump's policies.
Or they'll go up to, and they'll go up to Hillary people
and they go, here are a whole load of policies
and that the Trumps come up with and they're like,

(43:08):
oh, they're evil, they're terrible.
Yeah, they're Hillary's policies.
And they're just so like in the group,
the group matters what their policies are.
It's got no relevance whatsoever to a lot of people.
And it's not good.
And why and how things get packaged up?

(43:29):
So your view on nuclear power,
she'd have no relevance to your view on education policy
or your view on abortion.
Yeah, they're not related things, but somehow,
oh, if you have this view on abortion,

(43:49):
then you're also gonna have this view on nuclear energy.
Don't make any sense.
- I think going back to what we were talking about
with the social media thing,
I think that these things, social media and politics
kind of, they are like hijacking systems in our brain
that were put there to help us to survive.

(44:11):
Well, now surviving is a whole lot easier for us, right?
It thanks to technology and all kinds of other awesome things
medicine, all of this.
But with like social media, they're hijacking that dopamine,
right?
And that dopamine, they helped us to survive.
It motivated us to get out, get food, all of this.
It's a reward system.

(44:32):
And they say, hey, that thing that,
you know, that thing that used to fire in your brain
whenever you got a beautiful strawberry,
well, we're gonna show you naked women
and we're gonna fire that thing 10,000 times a day
and just fry your ship.
And it's kind of like, it really takes a lot
because it's like, it's deeply encoded into our DNA.

(44:52):
I feel like the political thing is the same.
It's like, hey, we used to live in small tribes
up to like about 100 people.
And all that mattered was our tribe.
Everybody else fuck you.
If you wanna come over here, I'm gonna kill you.
I'm gonna rape your women and pillage your forts, right?
And so now, I think like the politicians
or big companies or whatever are really, really good

(45:14):
at like just lighting that up, just lighting that up, right?
I may say to you, hey, John, hey, look,
yo, you live in London.
These other people, yo, these people actually want to
import all of the homeless people to your front door.
Are you gonna let them do that?
And of course you're gonna say, well, no, I'm not.
And by the way, fuck those people and everything

(45:36):
they stand for, right?
And now, and here we are, 2024, right?
2024.
That's it.
Yeah.
And neither is, and in that particular thing, neither
is really trying to have an intellectual solution
to immigration, right?
They're not, they're not really talking about those issues.

(45:57):
It's good these versus baddies.
And they'll flip.
It's crazy.
So if I made you, I created a brand new position just for you, John,
because I really like--
OK, great.
All right, this is your position.
We'll call it the John spot.
You are the president of the world.

(46:18):
You could do anything.
If you wanted to kill me, bam, you could do it.
You could do anything.
I wanted to do that, don't worry.
Thank you very much for sparing me.
Mark Zuckerberg, he would definitely get that bastard.
Oh, but sorry.
What, like, how would you tackle this social media issue,
the smartphone issue, the algorithmic fees, the addiction?

(46:41):
What, like, what would be your step one?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I definitely would, I mean, going back to the Jonathan Heights,
he's a, his advice.
He spells his name in a weird way if you Google it.
He's got a T somewhere, and I don't know.
It's, but yeah, his points of advice, I think,

(47:05):
would be the kind of thing I would push for.
I'd want to be a benevolent--
I've been, I've been benevolent, and then take away
my, my, my, and power very quickly.
So I wouldn't actually be president of the world,
but it would be all my power would disappear.
So it doesn't go to my head, and I make the world a worse place.

(47:26):
Yeah, I'd probably, I'd be full of the TikTok, man.
Yes.
Worldwide.
Yeah.
But it's tough, because I think what, what it looks like,
the path we're going down.
So here in the States, we had a crazy mofo, right?

(47:48):
He was called the unibomber.
He would mail--
Yeah, yeah.
OK, great.
His manifesto is extremely long, but he's
a very well-educated man.
He has like a PhD in math.
But the just of his entire manifesto and his cause was,
if we don't stop technology now, it's only

(48:09):
a matter of time before it ruins the whole world.
So I am doing my best to stop it by mailing
bombs to people who create technology.
But it seems like, because like you said, even if you were
president of the world, what are you going to do?
It's really hard to stop, quote unquote, progress.
Yeah.
And I think the problem is, I don't think

(48:32):
it's right to be intervening too much in people's liberty.
I think you want to have strict rules for children
and be quite liberal in relation to adults,
because I think it's really, really important that children are
not only protected, but they are
as their brains are evolving, they're not evolving in a really,

(48:57):
really destructive way that leads to patterns that go into adulthood.
I think once people are adults, you
should hope that their form of the years have been trained
well enough that they should be given more freedom.
I think it was--
I forgot the name of the guy.

(49:20):
He was one of the really, really, early translators of the Bible
back in, before, like, in 1300 or something.
And I think he had a--
he was the one that I think came up with,
government of the people, by the people for the people,
actually.
It's like, oh, really, old English thing.
But he was saying, unless people control themselves,

(49:42):
then you'll end up with an authoritarian government
that will control you.
And so the solution is always actually individuals
being in control of themselves.
But I think with all this technology,
you can put safeguards and laws to prevent the worst
successes.

(50:02):
So I think it's stupid that you can just
create an Instagram account with no ID.
I think you should have to prove that you are an adult,
or maybe not an adult, but you're not
70 as old.
Yeah, and also to prove that you're a real person too,
because--
Yeah.

(50:22):
Yeah, that's important too.
Propaganda has existed for as long as we've known.
But now you'd be like, hey, man, what's
the last piece of propaganda you've heard about?
I don't know.
And because they're so fucking good at it now,
you had the internet, which is the most powerful propaganda
to ever.
Social media is like the hammer, right?

(50:44):
It's what you use for everything.
I am a software engineer.
I code for a living.
And from a very early age in my coding
life or whatever, I realized that it is incredibly easy
to create bots, to create fake profiles,
and to essentially amplify whatever you want.

(51:05):
And I'm a single person here.
Now, if I can do that about maybe a single topic,
like let's say, hey, I wanted this podcast to blow up.
I wanted to be so popular.
I'm just going to create some bots,
and they're going to give it a million likes on Instagram
or something like that.
This is something that I could do.
Now, imagine what a country would do.
Imagine what China would do.

(51:26):
Imagine what the United States would do.
India, imagine what a company would do.
If I'm Nike and I'm releasing brand new shoe,
aren't I going to like, fire up the bot forms
to make tweets and posts and stuff that
seem like real people that who love the shoe?
And that's pretty innocuous, but could you

(51:48):
imagine something more sinister?
Like some of these tribal mentalities that we're seeing
and stuff like that.
Like, what if this is not an organic creation?
What if--
And so it's tough too, because as people, whenever I read
on social media, I'm a mother and my son died.
My heart breaks immediately.

(52:09):
But what I should think is, is this even a real person?
Yeah.
And nobody does that.
Yeah.
Yeah, the bot's thing is a huge issue.
And now you've got AI that can replicate language and images
and all of that, you can just--

(52:30):
that can be cranked up to the end degree.
And if you come across a guy called Ryan Holiday,
Halliday, Halliday?
It sounds very familiar.
So he's a kind of online guy.
He's a push of stoicism these days.
But he wrote a book about his early days

(52:52):
of manipulating stuff to get into news stories.
He used to work for American apparel.
And they would do, like, get one poster printed.
Then he would photograph the poster on the bus.
And then he would have fake accounts
writing about how this poster is evil and how it's the most--

(53:16):
the American apparel should be shut down.
And he'd have all these accounts.
And then he would go to the press about this.
And the whole thing would just escalate until he
had this massive news story.
And he would just play the system.
And he's very open about what he used to do,

(53:37):
which is quite interesting.
Now he's a stoic.
And he's decided to go a different route.
It's like a religious conversion.
He's doing good things, though, because I
wish more people would come out.
In fact, that's a great idea.
Maybe I should create some bots and just be like,
just to make a video, make a poster, whatever,

(53:58):
just to kind of demonstrate that this shit is really not
hard.
Also, the social media companies are almost
incentivized to not hunt out bots because to them all about is
is a daily active user.
And the more of those they have, the more money they make.
So it's kind of the incentives are warped.
Could you tell me about this damn jazz playing cow?

(54:21):
Yes.
So he's fighting these algorithms.
He's doing it in a non-conventional way using jazz.
Yes.
Because that is actually the way you fight it.
Fight algorithms with jazz.
It's the least algorithmic music you could possibly create.
So basically, he's a jazz playing cow,

(54:44):
and he's leading a resistance movement.
So he's in a corner of a place called Pop World, which
is the Bohemian quarter.
And it's kind of fishy France.
They are not part of the main city.
They've got slightly different rules.
And it's where all the misfits and weirdos and artists

(55:05):
and musicians and everyone kind of lives in that corner.
And so you've got people playing chess, artists and bakers,
all the kind of traditional things, things
that are inefficient and slow all happen in this quarter.
And they don't use smartphones.
They don't even use phones most of the time.

(55:26):
It's all too technological for them.
They just have them-- they're like books and playing music.
And so these guys, then you've got Dr. Pop,
who's the kind of tech-- runs the tech company that controls
the city.
And he's just expanding and expanding

(55:47):
onto their territories.
You've got a conflict between those two worlds.
And these guys can't-- jazz cows, guys, can't unite unless he's
there because they just argue and bicker
about everything and nothing.
And so he's-- they need him.
And he doesn't want to be the leader that he has to be.
And so that's the setup of the show.

(56:09):
And we're on-- may the first--
going to be trying to raise money for making the pilot, which
will be a heist movie with jazz cow trying
to get his sax back from Dr. Pop's.
Safe. So that's the setup.
What is his-- how does he get it back?

(56:30):
Because it seems like he's the underdog.
And it seems like his favorite thing is jazz.
And he's a cow.
So he's da-sow.
Like does he have guns?
Like what's his main approach here?
His approach is not to use guns.
If he was American, he would, though.
When he is American, he is actually-- he's played by an American.

(56:51):
A really good guy called Nico Niel, who's
got the smoothest jazz kind of voice around.
So he's brilliant.
So he's-- they basically fight the game in a different way.
So where Dr. Pop's world is digital, he's world's acoustic.

(57:13):
And so they use real world ways to solve these problems.
So without giving too much for spoiler, they actually use--
there's a way they use music to crack the code.
So this pilot is called the jazz heist and the cold train

(57:33):
code.
And so they use the music of John Cold Train to fix the problem.
I won't explain how or why that's the case.
Because I want to leave that for the show, not
to give too much for spoiler, but yeah.
This is awesome.
And I hear a lot of friends and stuff.

(57:54):
Man, there's not a lot of originality on TV.
Like everything's kind of duplicated.
This is the most original plot.
In fact, I messaged you.
I was like, I read the plot.
I said, holy shit.
This is the most original unique plot.
I can't even name something that's adjacent to it.
Where did the idea come up?

(58:15):
Like, what was the burst story?
So I've got a video coming out later this week.
Actually, on it.
But it's basically a group of issues
to spend our evenings laughing our heads off,
talking about nonsense until later at night,
every night, for a long time, just bouncing around silly ideas.

(58:40):
And I was flicking through-- or I don't know if it's me.
It might have been one of the other guys was flicking through.
A book that was a encyclopedia of cutting animals.
And they all get super fighting abilities
because they get bitten by something.
They all follow a fairly similar pattern.

(59:02):
And we're like, well, what happens if it was a cow
rather than super cool animal?
And what happens if it was the ability to play jazz, rather
the ability to have lightning come out of your nostrils
or whatever happens with other characters?
So that was where it began.

(59:22):
And then one of the guys started drawing the characters.
And then we woke up the next morning.
We're like, oh, yeah, we've got to make this.
And so--
Yeah, that was its origin.
So just a couple of friends, paling around, just joking around.
And then next thing you know, guys,
yeah, let me sketch this out and it's like, let's do it.

(59:43):
That is real yet.
So as much as you can, we watch our favorite animated series
such as Rick and Morty or something like that.
And we just kind of see, it's like, oh, this is entertaining.
But how do you go about making an animated series?
What is the first step?

(01:00:04):
And how do you bring it to life?
So you talking about the technical thing of the making of it
or the process of getting it?
So yeah, the technical thing of making it is script.
Getting the scripts completely ready.
And then from scripts, we would storyboard it.

(01:00:25):
So what detailed storyboards?
Often people talk about storyboards.
The word comes in lots of things these days.
We're talking, like, detailed things are shot by shot by shot.
And working out with each, each the overview of the story.
And then some of that would be going back to script and saying,

(01:00:47):
OK, we don't need that line.
We don't need that bit.
And from this, when we've got a storyboard that's working,
all we feel is working in really, really draft form
will then record voices and get that right.
And in that process, then script get bit of alteration as well.

(01:01:12):
Funny lines put in or some of the spontaneity that happens
with people in the room.
And then that would get timed to the storyboard
so we'd have the whole thing mapped out.
And at that point is where we really have to do the hard work
of going, and this'd be better, what's working, what isn't

(01:01:33):
working, and really refine that storyboard process with the timing
of the thing.
Because once that's locked, we don't really
want to go back because that becomes expensive.
So we each scene will then be--
well, each shot is taken out and then each--

(01:01:54):
and then that would be given to each scene
would be an animated scene separately.
That probably made no sense where I said it.
No, it does.
OK, good.
And then alongside that, any character design that's not
been done would be done.

(01:02:16):
From the storyboard, we'd work out all the backgrounds.
So if there were--
oh, we haven't got that particular background,
we'd get that drawn.
So it'd be drawing the backgrounds,
making sure the characters are ready.
And then all that goes into animated scenes.
And so you'd have our team doing the animation of scene by scene.

(01:02:41):
And then we'd put that back together again
with all the backgrounds and make sure
it's all any special effects, like lighting or explosions
or any of that kind of stuff is done.
And then at this point, although we've
started conversations at the beginning,

(01:03:02):
we're talking with music guys who
be putting soundtrack to the thing.
And then once that's all together,
we'll get all the sound mixed, nice and good.
And then add extra sound effects, like explosions and taps
of feet and all of that.

(01:03:25):
And then do the kind of edit making sure there's nothing is--
yeah, then it's all just perfectly timed.
And so that's the process.
And what's the significance of drawing it?
You mentioned that, oh, we may tweak the background,
and then we'll draw it.
Is that drawing just to help you visualize it

(01:03:46):
or does it serve a technical purpose?
So with the storyboard, we draw everything out
because we want it to be--
we don't leave anything to chance.
And so every shot, we can see with like scrolls,
whether it's working or not.
And you can do that very quickly.

(01:04:08):
And you want to eventually look good panels that you can just
read the story as a kind of black and white sketchy thing.
And then any backgrounds and things you draw are--
you don't have to draw any extra backgrounds
because you're not.
We've already worked out.
The shot is from that angle.

(01:04:29):
There's a bookshelf there.
There's a table there.
There's a window there.
And so all the compositions been worked out.
So then someone pops their head through a window.
Whatever.
Any of those things are planned out in advance.
So we're not drawing the window later on
that we didn't know we had to draw.
I mean, sometimes you do, of course.

(01:04:49):
But--
Yeah.
It just kind of helps-- it sounds like it just kind of helps
everybody visualize everything to where maybe if you guys
are planning a scene and you visualize it a certain way,
you visualize the cow standing in the corner with the dresser,
and then y'all all agree on it.

(01:05:11):
And then later you found out that, oh, everybody else
visualized something else.
So does that drawing just kind of helps keep everyone
on consensus?
And it's like a path.
Yeah, it's basically your compass.
And you want-- once that's agreed on, then that's--
it's kind of a fixed thing without a lot of hassle,

(01:05:32):
because everyone's then clear exactly what it is.
Because ambiguity is a real pain if you've
got one person thinks the cow sat in the corner
and the other thinks he's stood up leaning against the post.
Is it safe to say that this storyboard
becomes absolutely huge at the end of a project?

(01:05:53):
Yes, although you'll see in Pixar or Disney or these guys
now pin them to these walls, and they've got walls and walls
of them.
And we don't have that kind of luxury to have that space.
I want to small flat in love them,
and I do use some office space, but it's just a table.

(01:06:16):
And so what we do it all digitally,
so I have some specific storyboards
off where that I do everything in there.
So it would be pages and pages of stuff,
but it's all within this shiny square.
Just like everything else is digital.

(01:06:39):
Something that's always kind of fascinated me
about the animated series.
And I think we've all seen how they used to do sound effects
back in the day.
And it's like people like banging pants together
or just jingling keys in a bag with rocks or something.
They were so creative.
How do you do sound effects for your series?

(01:07:01):
So a mixture of it.
For this particular one, I want to involve the musicians
because the musical feel a lot more than normal.
But it's a mixture of using our library.
So we've got a large library of sound effects.

(01:07:21):
But we also would record some extra stuff as well.
I guess similar to those guys, we might bring in a sound designer
who's a specialist on that, but particular things.
But yeah, some of that old technique
is still done where you're creating the sound.
You can also take a sound and manipulate it.

(01:07:45):
So an and Jurassic Park, the sounds of the dinosaurs
were sounds of animals, but they were making them a lot
goop or doop, doop, doop, doop, doop.
Sound effect stuff.
Yeah, see, the digital manipulation you can do now as well.

(01:08:05):
That is awesome, man.
That is awesome.
It sucks that to hear that is mostly digital.
I was hoping that you would bring out a bag of keys and rocks.
And they're like, this is it.
We might, we might definitely don't write that off
as something we won't be doing.
Yeah, and one of the things, actually,

(01:08:26):
the musician we've got in the soundtrack
that called Nachet, who's an amazing jazz drummer.
But he's played with Alicia Keys and loads of people.
He's incredible.
But his big thing is traditional African instruments.
And I was at a gig recently.

(01:08:46):
And he just bought over this instrument.
I think from Ghana.
And he was kind of playing, it's like a little
xylophone type thing, but it was just quite small.
And so to not involve him in the sound effects,
would seem like I'm missing a trick.

(01:09:08):
Because he's, that's his thing.
And he's so good that, yeah.
Dude, you've got to do some behind the scenes footage.
We need--
Oh, I definitely.
Yeah, we need that.
We need that on YouTube or something.
Yeah, so we will do behind the scenes things.
We're going to, on the Kickstarter, we're going to have various tears.

(01:09:31):
So you get the film, film with special effects,
and then the bumper one with all the behind the scenes,
things that we produce.
So we'll all have that kind of stuff.
Some stuff will probably go out for free just
so that people can be like, oh, that's exciting.
But yeah, none of these stuff that is just for those that
have supported.

(01:09:51):
So now, with the series, are you trying
to get a message across with the series?
And if so, what is it?
Not get a message across.
I'm very nervous of any TV or film just trying to push a message,
because I feel it then becomes propagandistic
and becomes a bit too much like, goodies versus baddies,

(01:10:13):
and I just don't think we need more of that in the world.
But that said, there are--
I mean, we're coming--
me and my writer and others.
We're coming from a world view where
it's good to unplug.
It's good to connect with real people,

(01:10:33):
get back into being in communities,
and being flesh and blood, not just being this disembodied
person just looking at screen the whole time.
And one of the things that the musicians are doing
is trying to train other people's musical instruments.

(01:10:56):
So if people start playing musical instruments
and they start meeting people face to face
and getting off their screens once in a while,
then that would be a great outcome.
But I don't want tech bad, kind of,
lull-dice, rejecting tech good,

(01:11:17):
because I don't think that's how the world really is.
I mean, the bad guy, he's not like a Bond villain.
He really does want to make the world a better place.
And actually, Pop World is better on them,
but he may be in court.
It's not just evil.

(01:11:39):
It's more subtle.
Hopefully.
Yes.
And by the way, I'm so glad you said that,
because I read your plot.
And I was like, this is awesome.
But I was worried that you would shove a message down my throat.
And just to be frank, if I'm watching anything on TV,
any series where they'd be animated or not,

(01:12:02):
and if in the first 20 minutes, they're like,
our mission is to stop people from cutting down the forest.
By the way, great mission.
That's nothing wrong with it.
But I'm not here for that.
Everything, like everybody is trying to get us,
it feels like everyone's trying to get us to care
about something in the world.
Everybody, you turn on the TV.
It's like, there's a war in Ukraine.

(01:12:23):
Don't you feel bad?
Oh, there's a war in Israel, a parasite.
Don't you feel bad?
Which side do you support?
Look at the homeless people.
Don't you want to donate to them?
You go to the coffee shop.
They're like, hey, donate a dollar to save the goldfish.
You go to the grocery store.
They're like, hey, you can't use plastic bags
because that's killing the turtles.
And I'm like, oh my fucking God.

(01:12:44):
And for me, I want to come home.
And I want one thing.
I want to be entertained.
That's it.
Just make me smile, man.
Because I will be more loyal to the piece of content
that just makes me smile.
Does it make me feel shit for using plastic straws
or for having a Twitter account or anything like that?

(01:13:06):
I love that.
And I think that maybe some stuff,
do you think that some movies do have messages?
Like, for example, I've heard people say
that Star Wars has a hidden message.
Oh, you cannot create anything that doesn't reflect your view

(01:13:26):
on the world.
That's not possible.
Because they are extensions of the groups of people
that create them.
But Star Wars, at least the older ones,
don't feel propagandistic.
They are telling a story.
But taking a film, I don't know if you've seen, don't look up.

(01:13:47):
It's like, I kind of agree with it.
By the way, great example.
That one, and I'm sorry to cut you off.
That one is the one where it's like,
it kind of was on the borderline for me.
It was quite clear, but it was pretty entertaining.
It wasn't taming, but I did feel like,
OK, you've not explored.

(01:14:07):
You've not given the other side.
You just made one side look good,
the other side looks stupid.
And it's quite good that they think implemented
all of us in the stupid camp.
But I would rather have seen a little bit stronger
side, stronger match.

(01:14:28):
I think it would have been better film for it.
But I don't want anyone watching this to think
that that means I want to destroy the environment
and destroy the world.
And no, no, no.
No, absolutely not.
But it just does--

(01:14:50):
I think people are just turned off now
by the messages being shoved down a throat,
because it just seems like every single day,
we're just told to care about something
that's not in our immediate life.
And also, if you don't care about it,
you should feel like shit.
Whenever I'm just trying to get my life together,

(01:15:12):
that's it.
I'm just going to be a happy, healthy human.
And I'm not that good at that yet.
Yeah.
And that's a much healthier humble position to be in,
because I don't know.
This idea that we can solve all the world's problems--
it's a bit arrogant.
It's like, let's just try and solve a few things and do them well.

(01:15:35):
Yeah, I mean, if drinking from a different type of straw
is going to take a few turtles, then sure.
But yeah, I definitely can't solve all these problems.
And I can't commit to doing everything perfectly,
because I can't.
I'm just a human.
Some of it feels like a hustle.

(01:15:55):
Like it feels like--
Oh, yeah.
What's it called?
Carp and offsetting.
Is it Carp and offsetting where they--
you big corporations, they totally destroy the environment.
And then they plan to treat us say that they're good guys.
I'll come on.
Yeah, I don't believe you.

(01:16:16):
And then they're telling people off who maybe do one flight
every few years.
And they're a big hollum that they've saved years,
been saving up for years to go on.
And they're, oh, they're bad people.
It's like, oh, because you're rich,
you're a better person, OK?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
No, we can talk about this for days.
Or the women on Instagram who have $100,000 of plastic surgery,

(01:16:42):
they have professional hair and makeup artists.
They have the best personal trainers.
And they take these pictures of their big old juicy booties.
And then they use filters.
They touch them up.
They straight up Photoshop them.
And then they post it on Instagram with the caption,
ladies should love themselves.
[LAUGHS]

(01:17:04):
It's like, you should love yourself regardless of how you look.
It's like, hold up, man.
This is a hustle.
It is.
It is.
And yeah, it's so--
I can't remember I saw a thing taking the mic
out of all of that.
And it had someone doing all these poses.

(01:17:25):
And then as soon as the pose is over,
they were looking miserable.
And I feel like that's so much of what's going on there.
It's people are just running whatever way to hustle,
because I think as they need the money,
or because they're addicted to it, yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Art Taylor Swift telling us to save the plan, save the turtles

(01:17:49):
while she's taking five-minute jet flights
to her next door neighbors house or something like that.
And man, it just sucks because, yeah, like these people
are idols.
We would like corporations or governments or celebrities
with lots of influence and reach to help us.

(01:18:11):
But instead, it seems like they're using that
to make themselves more money, just like everything else.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the thing is, I don't want to be cynical.
I don't want to just go all into that,
oh, I'm really cynical of these people.
But then I keep doing things that makes me so--
Do you think-- I thought about this.
So do you think that people are--

(01:18:33):
I don't have a great word for it.
Do you think that people are becoming more shitty,
kind of like how we describe?
Or do you think, due to the internet and technology,
we just have more exposure to the shittiness
that's always been there?
I think the internet is an amplifying tool in many ways.
So amplifies the best and worst of humanity.

(01:18:54):
But I think what has happened is the--
it's easier to monetize anger, and it's easier
to monetize the worst aspects of human nature.
And so that has risen to the top, I think.
It didn't in the early days of the internet.
I remember when I first started using the internet,
it was so amazing.

(01:19:17):
If I didn't know the answer to some random weird thing
that I wanted to know, I would go, well, that's fine.
The university professor who's done a PhD on this thing,
send them an email, ask them the question,
they do email back?
I might get the answer.
That was incredible.
Now they probably wouldn't get it.

(01:19:40):
Look in because spam filters, and they wouldn't know who you are.
And the internet has just become--
and they would be worried, probably,
that I'm someone that's trying to undermine them in some way.
I don't know.
It's all--
it was fun at the beginning.
It really was a fun time.
It was awesome.
You were so right.
And I remember, too, the beginning of social media,

(01:20:02):
the original Myspace Facebook type thing,
and the French, or whatever, it was really freaking cool.
It was.
It was like, I remember I would go and I would make my profile
or whatever.
And I would try to take--
of course, you try to take a decent picture or whatever,
but you would go on and you would see more normal content

(01:20:27):
is how I would describe it.
You would see people.
They would take a picture and it's like, oh, she's very pretty,
but there's obviously a zit on her forehead.
But that's OK.
Or like, your body, you know, you would just--
it wasn't so pose-y and performative.
And it seemed like people were more real.
And just like, it was just a lot more tangible.

(01:20:48):
But now it's just been-- everything's been rationed up to 11.
Because it used to be--
I remember, Facebook, when it first launched,
you organized an event, a physical event in the real world.
You just send it to your friends list.
And you could do it like really short notice.
And if someone was free that night, you'd meet up.

(01:21:08):
And it actually facilitated more face-to-face interactions.
And then they got rid of all that.
Because they did-- but what did people
sadden alone in that room?
Do you think it's nefarious?
Do you think it was like executive powerful people
got in a room and it's like, hey, yeah, man,
these people are congregating too much.

(01:21:31):
They are joining together too much.
They're becoming too powerful.
Let's tweak the algorithm.
Let's tweak how this works to where it'll
divide more people and we can make more money.
I want to think that.
And it feels so conspiratorial.
But--
the evidence kind of leans that way.

(01:21:55):
Beautiful.
So OK, we had on 10 foil hats.
So it does-- if they're not intentionally dividing people,
like, OK, here's the question.
Could social media companies and internet companies
make the same or more money without dividing people?

(01:22:21):
I think that is possible.
I think humans are incredibly creative.
And I think if there were smart people that
work in towards that brief, I think it's possible.
Smarter people than me.
So one of the things I've noticed is Twitter has now--

(01:22:42):
now doesn't let-- what?
It lets you do external links.
But if you do an external link, they
won't show you a poster anyone pretty much.
So it's about three people.
And if you don't have a link, they'll show it to a few more people,
not many, but they've obviously done that
to keep you on the platform, which seems smart from business

(01:23:07):
perspective.
But I do wonder because it makes me use it less,
because I like-- one of the things I've liked about Twitter
is interesting people sharing interesting articles, which
I won't read then because I'm looking at short things.
But I'll save it to the app pocket, I don't know if you know

(01:23:28):
pocket, and I'll read these articles offline later on.
And it was a great source for just expanding my knowledge
and helping me learn about all sorts of interesting things.
By deprooritizing external links, it's just made me use
the platform less.
Don't see as many ads.

(01:23:48):
That's worse for their business.
So that's--
but they've obviously done the calculation that is better
for those that do so on the platform.
I've seen alternative platforms try and launch,
and most of them have not done very well.
And I used to think, oh, it's impossible to launch

(01:24:09):
anything new because of market share,
but I now think that things are so fragmented,
I don't think we can ever get back to that.
That kind of one dominant thing.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know either.
It seems like the commonality to a lot of these platforms

(01:24:32):
is that they make you feel good right now.
And later on, you feel bad.
I wonder if you could flip-- not flip it,
but hey, maybe the content isn't as click baited,
is it as vibrant, but maybe you say, hey, after this,
I feel good.

(01:24:53):
I'm happy.
That's actually something specifically Elon Musk has said
that he wants to achieve, and whether he's telling the truth
or sub-deluded or whether he really believes that--
I don't know.
I don't know the guy.
But he certainly said that as an aspiration.
Yeah, it's so hard.

(01:25:16):
Human nature.
It's got its flaws.
What also sucks too is that you say, all right, you know what?
I'm going to own a flip phone.
But now, like, some things are kind of dependent
on smartphones, like a lot of tickets to events.
You have your medical information on there,
your insurance cards and stuff like that, your GPS apps,

(01:25:39):
and all of this.
And so by each day that passes, it becomes harder
to opt out of the stuff that whole world.
Yeah, it's near impossible.
And it creates a technological gap as well for those
that don't have, and then they can't access services.
It feels really-- doesn't feel right.

(01:26:02):
There's a guy who-- so in the UK, when people drop below a certain
level of poverty on the streets or whatever,
we have what they call temporary accommodation where you
basically have people with a tiny little room with a bed
and maybe a cooking facility of some description.

(01:26:22):
And that's where-- and they just pack people in who
are really hit the bottom.
And there's a guy who's now colloc, and he can walk her.
And me and my wife were carrying him to this temporary
accommodation at the end of our road.
I gave-- I gave him my phone number, and he said, oh,
I don't have a phone.

(01:26:43):
And it's like, you-- someone's reached that level,
and they don't have a phone.
They're so cut off from so many things.
And it probably doesn't have a phone because every time
it gets, when your property sells it to get alcohol and drinks.
But once you're at the bottom, once is also

(01:27:04):
technological, and also elderly people, of course, who
might not be able to have the ability to learn all the new
technology.
Yeah, yeah, it is weird.
And I feel really bad for the elderly people
because tech has advanced so much so fast, especially,

(01:27:25):
like you were saying with the AI and all of that stuff.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Go ahead, I'm sorry.
I know it's going to say all the AI stuff is ability
to scam is just--
I've sent someone yesterday who does
enough of his voice online that you could easily
create an AI to replicate his voice.

(01:27:48):
If you phone masking his phone so you can phone someone
from his phone number without him knowing, using his voice,
and it will sound real, particularly on a phone line,
or it's not quite as good quality as other things.
And that's--

(01:28:09):
I mean, we trust people.
If they're voice and their phone number is coming from,
why would you not trust it?
And you're totally right.
They'll even do something.
They'll go on TikTok.
They'll find a 15-year-old guy on their right
who has 30 TikTok videos.
And they'll do exactly what you said.

(01:28:31):
They'll get his voice and they can mimic it with AI
with just a couple minutes of training data.
And then they'll find out who his mom is,
and they will call his mom.
And it'll be his voice and say, "Mom, mom, I've been kidnapped.
Oh, my gosh.
You've got to help me right now.

(01:28:51):
They're touching me.
They're going to take me cut my head off.
Please, mom.
Just all you have to do is send $1,000 in Bitcoin
to this address.
Please.
And what do you expect the mother to do in that situation?
That would be like, I don't have to use Bitcoin.
It'd be nice knowing your son.
Say, yeah.

(01:29:12):
A sensible mom will be like, whatever his name is, Jimmy.
Jimmy, you upstairs.
But like, wait, this can't be him.
Yeah.
I saw him fight with him.
But yeah, it's in that panic situation, a mom,

(01:29:36):
if they've got the means or they're trying to get the meat,
they're so easily going to get drawn in.
Because it sounds just like their son,
particularly if they do it from his phone number, which is possible.
Exactly, man.
That's the really scary thing, the combination.
Oh, man.
Yeah, you can do anything, man.

(01:29:57):
We went from these fishing emails.
And also, too, the other stuff that they're doing with like,
what disturbs me about the AI is if you take these companies,
and you say, OK, what's your business model?
How do you make money?
They essentially make money by replacing jobs, right?
Hey, you don't need 10,000 customer support people.

(01:30:17):
You just need $1,000 a month in AI agents and bam.
You just saved $10 million a year.
And this is crazy.
So that in combination with kind of the other scammy shit
you can do, there's already tons of AI porn.
In case we needed another type of porn out there, holy shit.

(01:30:39):
There's all of this stuff.
It's just kind of--
Do they have multiple fingers?
Do they have like 10 fingers on each hand?
No, that's the appeal.
That's the appeal, John.
That man, she wraps all 10 of these fingers around me.
Oh, boy.
Man, my girlfriend can't do that.
Oh, no.

(01:30:59):
You can get a generation that girl out.
Oh, that's a thing.
I dread to think, man, because--
and that's the thing is that they're going to grow up,
and then we're going to be looking out and be like,
oh, that generation, they are terrible.
It's like, well, look, what the fuck they been through?
Like, you know what, smartphones, AI, social media,

(01:31:19):
it back in the days where Jesus walked.
You don't think Jesus would be on TikTok?
Probably so.
Do you?
I've got no idea, but certainly everyone around him
would have been on TikTok.
They'd be like, hey, hanging up with Jesus.
Yeah.
Yeah, I wonder.

(01:31:40):
I wonder.
Yeah, they probably would have been like that,
and he probably wouldn't have had TikTok,
but would have been all over TikTok.
Yes, yes.
That's a good point, man.
Yeah, man, we're all products of our environment.
Hopefully, the JazzCow can come and save us all.
Do you want to let people know where they could find you
and support your work?
Yeah.
So it's jazzcow.co.uk, jazzcow.co.uk.

(01:32:05):
And the Kickstarter isn't live yet.
That goes live on May 1st.
But if you sign up, you can get notified when it launches.
And also, if you look at my company, QuarkyMotion,
QUIRKYMOTIOM, at the various different social medias,

(01:32:26):
you can find us and follow us on them.
So Twitter, Facebook, Instagram is other ones, Facebook.
Yeah.
That's it, man.
Support these damn creative people, man,
and get off a fucking Netflix, you bastards.
Thank you so much for coming on, John.

(01:32:46):
You're awesome.
Thank you so much.
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#33 John Lumgair | Are our phones spying on us?, creating an animated series, the internet's impact on our wold

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#33 John Lumgair | Are our phones spying on us?, creating an animated series, the internet's impact on our wold