H.I. No. 128: Complaint Tablet Podcast

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"Complaint Tablet Podcast"
Hello Internet episode
Episode no.128
Presented by
Original release dateAugust 31, 2019 (2019-08-31)
Running time1:16:40
Sponsors
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"H.I. #128: Complaint Tablet Podcast" is the 128th episode of Hello Internet, released on August 31, 2019.

Website synopsis[edit | edit source]

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Episode 128 on the podcast YouTube channel

"Grey & Brady complain about things."[1]

Release and commercial performance[edit | edit source]

"Very Hello Internet" was released on August 31, 2019.[1] The episode debuted as a live premiere on the Hello Internet YouTube channel before being made available to podcast clients later that day.[2][3] The YouTube video received 21 thousand views in its first week of release.[4] Its audio is set to footage of wet clay atop a spinning potter's wheel, framed in close-up.

Transcript

Gray, can we start on a somber note before we get into the usual laugh a minute high junks that is a Hello Internet episode. So some people will have probably already seen on social media and emails and things. But for those who don't know, I have the the somber and say due to the report that Lulu, the greyhound, my greyhound has passed. She's been discussed many times on the show. She's probably sat through 90% of the Hello Internet recordings that have been made. But with a heavy heart, Lulu has gone on to wherever dogs go to. She was about 12 and a half years old, which was pretty good for a greyhound. But age finally caught up with her. I'm afraid. And I'm sad to have to tell people that. But everyone who's sent messages, lots of people have sent messages, whether you know, comments on Twitter or emails and that. I've really appreciated it. People have been really nice about it all. And if you do nothing else, at least give thought to retired greyhounds next time you're thinking of getting a dog or giving to charity or anything like that because they're great, great animals. And Lulu was the best of them. Do you have a specific charity that you recommend that we should put in the show notes or a link for a donation, please? I've been running a just giving page that I sort of funnel any money I get through and one that can be associated with Lulu. And that's for the retired greyhound trust in the United Kingdom. We'll put that in the show notes. Yeah. It's very sad news. It's very sad to hear it. Audrey is fine. Everyone obviously is asking about Audrey. Audrey is the Chihuahua by the way, the people who get too confused. She's doing well, a little bit more clingy than usual following us around the house a bit more than usual. But she has dealt with it very well and is going strong as always. I'm glad to hear that. Although it does. It does break my heart to think about. Her not sitting on top of Lulu like that. Yeah. You know, it's like whenever I would come to visit is the most adorable thing I've ever seen. And so yeah, that's as very sad. She did use Lulu as a big mattress. So at least Lulu does put up with that anymore. Oh, it's Gallows humor. It's how it's how you have to pull through. All right. What do we go? I have to start something for the show after that. Let me help with the transition. It is very, very sad. And if you'd spoken to me a couple of weeks ago around the time it actually happened. I was a sad guy for a few days. But you know what? You got to move on and had a lot of happy times and Lulu would want us to go on and talk about a name rubbish on Hello Internet. Okay. We'll do it for Lulu. Push through. Let's push through. I was given a piece of a feedback for you, Brady, over my travels this summer. Remember how many episodes ago you made a comment about what were people in the past like, you know, how did they live? How did they love where they like us? Were they different? And someone passed along this delightful little bit of feedback for the show that I have just message to you. And it is called the complaint tablet to Ian Assier. And as the Wikipedia page describes it, this complaint tablet is a clay tablet from ancient Babylon written 1,750 years BC. And it is a complaint to a merchant from a customer. And it is believed to be the oldest recorded example of a human complaining. It is in the British Museum. And I swear it speaks to me as like a Hello Internet monument. Like it's written in Kiena form. It's great to read the complaint because it could be written today. And I think it speaks both to the spirit of our show and also to the fact that humans are always the same. And like with lines like, what do you take me for that you treat me with such contempt? What's the, it's some sort of complaint about copper ingots for the look of it. Just as in modern times, someone bought something and didn't get what they thought they were promised. And they are complaining about it. And it charms me to think that ancient Babylon, it rose, it fell. And for this guy complaining to a merchant, little did he know at the time that he was creating history, that this piece of clay would survive 4,000 years to reach us in the modern day. And be the oldest known example of a human complaining. I see this little as a mention here of Squarespace. Even if I can't get it, I'm already allowing 100 on there. Arasus fade. Nothing's changed. Nothing changes. Very nice. I feel like you've kept me here now because I want to complain about stuff, but you're going to be like, Oh, Brady, though, it is the exact reverse. This show is our own clay tablet of complaints. And let us hope that thousands of years in the future, it survives as an example from the early 21st century of humans complaining. Well, if we're going to complain about anything, I think we should start with paper straws. Oh, yes. A favorite, totally non-controversial topic of the show. Please, paper straws. Tell me about how great they are, Brady. Paper straws, which have taken the United Kingdom by storm. I think this is one of the great mistakes. This is on par with Brexit for me, this introduction of paper straws for crazy self harm. Because the latest new story, the one I've put in the show notes, one of just many, is that apparently the paper straws that have been introduced at McDonald's are non-recyclable. So they can't even, they can't recycle them. I accidentally went to McDonald's the other day and I may have accidentally ordered a chocolate shake. It happens to us all. You cannot drink a shake with a paper straw. They haven't got the stamina. These things that take a long time to drink, I was less than a quarter of the way through my shake before my straw just fell to pieces. The other day I was at the baseball and I had a, what would you call them? Like a slush puppy, a slurpee, those like icy things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a slush puppy. They take a long time to drink, don't they? They require a lot of straw time. It's a long time to drink because if you try to drink them quickly, you will be punished with the freezing headache. So you have to take your time with this. I was given that with a paper straw and it was a really big one too. Can you imagine trying to drink a really big slush puppy with a paper straw? It was unbelievable. It was disintegrating within moments. And there's bits of paper in my mouth and falling in my drink and then I'm, I don't mind getting rid of plastic straws if you already had a solution in place. They do not have a viable solution in place. I see here. It just just skimmy through the article that you've sent. It looks like McDonald's was trying to combat the very problem you're discussing, which is you need some real pressure to be able to pull up a thick milk shake through that straw. And it seems like they have made their straws thicker to try to serve the purpose. They are intended to serve. And this seems like it's been one of the problems for actually processing these things. Well, I also don't do the job of getting the shakes. That's loose, loose. This is why it's so infuriating. Now it's a lose on every possible level, right? He's like, OK, well, you're not good at drying. You make the drink taste worse. And now some portion of you are not recyclable, which was the whole idea in the first place. I am looking at myself here, great though. I am in like moments of quiet reflection thinking, is it me? Like is everyone else handling this properly? And I have some weird drinking technique where I hold the liquid in the straw for too long. And I should be blowing it back down between sips or something or like, like, do I have some weird drinking technique that makes me ill-suited to paper straws? Is this a worldwide problem? To me, it feels like the world is ending because of these paper straws. But I don't see lots and lots of complaints about it. So if it's me, tell me, I will accept it. I will tell you, it's not you, Brady. So I discussed paper straws with everyone who would listen over the several flights. And many people who wouldn't listen, but they were going to. Yeah. And I say this, this camp breaks into two very clear groups. The people who are, who are just trying to enjoy a delicious chocolate shake and don't also want paper and wood in their mouth at the same time. And, and then the other group of people never want to discuss the straws. They only want to discuss the ocean and the environment. Right. And having a conversation about the straw itself is basically impossible with this sort of person. Right. And like, I want to put on record a thing that is, like, it's so hard to express this idea. But listen, listen, if you're getting mad right now and you're thinking, I can't believe these two guys are complaining about the paper straws again. Don't they care? Listen, I think we care more than the people who are ideologically on the environmental side of this. I too want an ocean that is clean from plastic. Like almost every human being can agree with this. And the thing that also bothers me about the straws is genuinely think it's a moral bad to do these things that just look good and feel like accomplishments when they're totally not. Right. When it's like, what is the pollution in the ocean actually? It's some ridiculous number, like 50% discarded nets from fishing. Right. It's like, hey, maybe we should start there before we start with the straws. And so it's like, I care about the environment, but this is such a frustrating thing where it feels like you're losing on all fronts. It's not a good straw. It's not recyclable. And it's not a significant portion of the actual pollution that's out there in the world. It's like, start with the big things. Don't start with these little small things and then people go like, oh, we got rid of those plastic straws. I'm helping. It's so infuriating. I do care about the environment. I do think you go a little bit too hard on this whole deal with the big problem. Let's ignore the small things like I think small games add up, you know, and I think there's nothing wrong with doing the one percent as I don't mind getting rid of plastic straws. And, you know, yeah, it's not as big a deal as fishing nets, but I still think we should do it. And I think sometimes you're a little bit too dismissive of the small things for my personal taste. Yes. I will totally agree. There's a completely valid complaint. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things though that I do just have in mind about this, which sort of gets a little bit more abstract. But it is the idea that like everything that you want to do has some kind of political cost. Just in terms of, you know, how many bills can a legislative house pass in a year? Like the thing is there are constraints around the system. And I also worry about things like the paper straw irritating people so that they like push back harder on future plastic bands that might actually be more effective. Oh, that's a better argument. But like I totally agree that small gains can add up. Like that's not the argument here. But everything happens within a system of constraints. And even like the mental space that this can take up in people's lives. Like how many topics can you get someone? Riled up to care about in a year. That number is not infinite. And how are like how many things can you get action on? It's not an infinite number of things. And so it always feels to me like a squandering of attention and the resources that we have available to get something done. And there is a teeny tiny thing that you said, which actually makes me wonder. You said about like, oh, you have to drink faster with the paper straws. I was wondering like, are the companies in on this? Is this actually the plan that they know when they roll out the paper straws? People actually just drink the drinks faster. And then on average consume more drinks. I'm a little bit suspicious now about what the true motives behind this plastic straw ban are. Let me give something that isn't an opposite of a complaint. What would one call it? A compliment, I guess, would that be the opposite of a complaint? Yeah. I'm so I'm so on use to this idea. But let me let me try to give one. So we have complained in the past about Uber drivers talking to you. Yeah, perhaps one of the most torturous things a human being can have to endure. And this summer for the first time, I saw something when I went to book my Uber rides. It was like the skies opening up and a shaft of light descending upon me from the heavens. And it was upon booking a ride, Uber popped up a little message saying, what are your preferences for this ride? Would you like to have a conversation or would you not like to have a conversation? It's hard to think of days or moments where I have been more purely happy than the first time I saw that message. Like it's just an unexpected gift from the heavens. And I immediately set conversation to please don't talk to me. And I'm very happy about this now. Thank you machine for mediating this awkward exchange between humans where I have to pretend like I'm not listening to you and try to make as clear with my body language as possible that I do not want to talk to you. Now you driver can get a little message that says, please don't talk to this person. Just take him where he needs to go. So thank you, Uber. I really appreciate it. I have some questions. Okay. And observations. I mean, besides the fact it's just automating the process of making you look like a dick before the road. It's not no. It makes you look professional. I'm a professional passenger here. That's not being a dick. I completely disagree with your framing. If I was going to a meeting with you and I got to the meeting first and I said to the other guy, look. Gray doesn't like it when you look him in the eye. Yes. You know, I think that would make you look weird in advance. Yeah. That's fine. But I would prefer that. That would be great. As a general statement, please don't look directly at me. Here's my next question. If you had said I do want conversation, is the driver now obliged to speak to you? Just the driver have any say in this or do they just have to do what you want? Okay. So I've sent you the screenshot and the exact wording is your driver will be notified and may be able to accommodate your preferences. Conversation. And you've put quiet preferred. Are there multiple options or just is it binary? I think there were a couple and that was that was the least chatty one possible. There's no medium one like I've bit a small talk, but nothing personal or I want to go deep. I can't see what it is now, but I do feel like there actually were several levels because they do the I think they were like three. But one of them was definitely like, Oh, I love to talk to people. Please chat with me, you know, which is baffling to me. And I would pay good money to see the user breakdown of what preference people select who actually bother to fill this out. I would totally love to know how many people flip that box to say, Oh, I love talking with the driver. That's great. That's what I'm here for. The ride incidental conversation primary. I also like that you can choose the temperature of the vehicle. Like give them an idea that you like a cooler warm. I do feel a bit like already whenever I'm booking an Uber, it's getting a bit complicated. And I do feel like, Oh, not more steps and options. It's like turning into America. Like do you want the small, super small medium? Do you want cheese? Do you want Swiss cheese? Do you want American cheese? Do you want what sauce do you want? We've got 19 different sources. And now Uber's doing it. Do you want a little bit of chat? Do you want heavy chat? Do you want no chat? Do you have any bags if you got what temperature do you want the car? It's like, I just want the car for God's sake. I'll do this when the car gets here. Just get me the car. I want to stop pressing them phone all the time. I did forget about your option over well in America. And I think that is that is a totally legitimate and genuinely draining thing to constantly experience, especially when you're trying to get from one place to another. At least with this, you can pretty much just set it once and never have to change the options. The only one you flip like the bags. So that's why it says on the bottom they're like, confirm preferences because I did it too fast the first time. It just popped up to say like, Oh, is this is what you want the next time? OK. There is one, which is I think too far. And I feel bad for the drivers for people who do express this preference. And I think people who express this preference are total dicks. And it is people who want particular music to play in the Uber. So I know that I think with Android phones and Spotify, there's some way to have like an integration with your Uber driver that whatever you're listening to now when you get in the car, plays through the car speakers. And I've had Uber drivers ask me about integrating whatever I'm listening to with their sound system of the car. And I would always say note of this. And I always tell the drivers the same thing like, look, I'm just going to put on my headphones. You listen to whatever you want to listen to. This is your working space. Like you don't have to listen to what I'm listening to. You know, you don't want to listen to 15 minutes of an audio book about truffles that just happens to be at the part where I'm listening to it, right? Like just do whatever you do with man. And I just I cannot imagine, you know what? Maybe I can, but I cannot imagine the kind of person who feels like they want to push their preferences that far. That feels too far. We all have to have a line and that feels too far. Some people can be very pretentious about music, but you wouldn't do that, Brady, right? That's not you agree. That's too far. As an Uber driver, though, I love the idea of getting like 20 different 15 minute samples of people's lives as they get in the car without actually speaking to them. So you just get 15 minutes of truffles, 15 minutes of reggae, 15 minutes of sport, 15 minutes of rap. Like it would be quite a funny thing. Like it'd be good podcast. Like there's a YouTube live streaming channel in there somewhere, right? Of like some Uber driver setting up what my rides are listening to and streaming it. Like that, it feels like there's something there. That's not a bad idea. When I was in America this summer, visiting family, there was one thing. My family could not stop talking about something that had changed their lives in such a positive way. They felt compelled to talk about it at almost every meal. That is Hello, fresh. Hello, fresh is a meal kit delivery service that shops, plans and delivers step by step recipes and pre-measured ingredients straight to your door. So you can just cook, eat and enjoy and as verified by my parents, it can be completely life changing. Are you tired of the psychological drag of trying to decide what to eat? Do you feel that your palate is narrow and limited? Would you like to have an engaging activity to do with someone you love? Hello, fresh. We'll solve all of these problems for you. Cook delicious meals that are simple to make. The meals come with pre-measured ingredients. You have a nice, simple, six-pictured step recipe card to follow and all the meals come together in 30 minutes max. And it really helps you get out of your recipe rut. It helps you expand your palate and try new things. The variety of foods that my father is willing to give a try now because of Hello, fresh is literally breathtaking. As he said to me, son, before Hello, fresh, I had never eaten a zucchini. My life is better now. With a recommendation like that, how could you not give it a try? Go to HelloFresh.com slash HelloInternet80. That's HelloInternet all one word followed by the number 80 and get $80 off your first month of Hello, fresh. It's basically receiving eight free meals. Once again, go to HelloFresh.com slash HelloInternet80 and enter promo code HelloInternet80 at checkout. Not only will you get delicious food sent to your door, but it might also just change your life. Thanks to HelloFresh for supporting the show and thanks to HelloFresh for transforming my parents kitchen. Let's do three quick bits of very quick machine gun follow up. Okay. I'll do them quick, but they're these are HelloInternet masts. Okay. First of all, the mighty blackstamp in Adelaide, the Grenfell Center has been sold. Oh, did we buy it? No, I don't believe so. It was bought by a Singapore real estate investment trust called soil build RIT. Very exact. They bought it for $134 million. I'm reading this article about it that makes me angry on two fronts. The urban developer.com not only if they called it Grenfell Tower, which is not the right name. I read it. It's Grenfell Center. Grenfell Tower is the name of a building in London that had a great tragedy last year. Grenfell Center is the building. And they didn't once call it blackstamp in the article. Okay. I guess I have to accept that. The deal marks the $600 million plus sale of an Adelaide office tower in just over a year. Here's the one bit that could have been alluring. As part of the deal, soil build has also agreed to pay an additional $5 million to secure an incoming tenant in quotation marks. What? So they've paid a little bit extra to secure an incoming tenant. There's been a lot of talk about the Hollywood Internet Museum being in the Marty Blackstamp. I was going to say, is that us? Like I never know with you, Brady. Is this have you arranged something as usual without me having any idea of what's going on? Yes, Gray, the $5 million will be landing in our bank account in the next few weeks. Because let me tell you, I will fly to Adelaide for that for sure. There is a rumor that it's an engineering company. Oh, perhaps Australia's great space race is moving into the building. Perhaps, perhaps. I do believe that was 23 or so people who were on that project. So look, I'm just saying the building's been sold new management. They might be open to new ideas to sort of bring people into the building. Right. The museum remains on the table, especially if they have that kind of cash to throw around. Now this can be a serious project. You can't buy ad ads without some serious cash infusion. Well, speaking of ad ads, the next little bit of feedback involves Imran Khan, who is the prime minister of Pakistan. He's also a former great cricketer, which is interesting to me, but not so much to you. He recently visited Washington. Now there was this story. And I don't know. I'm not commenting on the rights or the wrongs of the story. But a lot of the reporting at the time he landed was that no US official was sent to the airport to meet him. He was instead met by like his own people and then had to find his way to where he was going. So people were building this up as a bit of a controversy or a snubbing make of it what you will. I have no opinion on it. But what it did result in is Imran Khan and his little posse of fellow officials and the official who was meeting him had to lump their way off the Qatar Airlines playing their on into an ad ad. And then a bunch of people took photos of Imran Khan looking miserable in the ad ad. And I was even seeing it being reported on Twitter and people saying, oh my goodness, I can't believe Imran Khan had to ride on those depressing people movies at Douglas Airport. And I like that those ad ads have become like the symbol of being snubbed. Is that rather than like a red carpet and some official at the bottom of the staircase that you're playing? You have to get on to those. God awful. There's a whole bunch of pictures. If you Google Imran Khan and Dallas, you'll find a whole bunch of people. Just people with their mobile phones taking pictures of him sitting on the ad ad. I'm just looking at them now. I do have to say you could turn this around and it would be kind of awesome if the ad ad took him directly to his final destination. But that would be like props for Dallas. But no, just having to change terminals in the ad ad. A much less delightful experience. They missed a real chance for fun and whimsy with that one. It could have been a great Dallas PR moment of, oh no, don't worry. We'll take you directly where you're going, sir. Well, they could have like a big golden ad ad for like the VIPs with like a big red carpet in it. Like they crack out the special ad whenever it's like a head of state. They really could just have one that was when we first discussed them years ago. There was the original idea that they were the mobile lounges. Right? That you were supposed to be like relaxing in comfort in these things until your plane was ready and it deposited you directly onto the plane with no waiting. So they can have one that's actually a mobile lounge with carpets and comfortable seating, a little barista to take care of you. I know. I've got a better idea, right? Okay. Like have a smaller one that just holds two or three people. It's like an ATSD. Yeah, two legs. Okay. And it just walks too legged around the airport. I mean, that does sound cool. I'm not going to disagree with you. That sounds cool. It doesn't seem very possible, but would be cool. And just finally, an article that can't go by without us at least commenting on its existence. Some quoting here from the telegraph now. Aviation experts have criticized stupid safety videos after passengers forced to evacuate a flight last week were filmed carrying their wheelie suitcases on the plane's emergency slides. Basically, the upshot of all this is is when evacuations do happen, now people don't seem to know what they're doing and they're blaming the poor safety videos. Safety experts warned the recent trend for humorous pre-flight safety demonstration videos mean passengers do not know what to do in an emergency. British Airways revealed a new safety video in July last year featuring fictional character Chabadi G played by Asim Childry. Oh, yeah. The video also features Michael Cain, Olivia Coleman, Naomi Harris, Joanna Lumbly and David Williams. An aviation analyst said the stupid videos meant passengers struggle to know what to do. When an aircraft is having an emergency landing and passengers are told they will need to evacuate, their heads are supposed to be ticking back to everything they saw in that video. All I can remember now is someone laughing, someone joking, someone being sarcastic, and Mr. Bean dancing around at the end. A British Airways spokeswoman said the primary reason for our pre-flight video is always to communicate a safety message. Let someone make a note right now for how long is it from this article and this episode of Hello Internet until the first time British Airways does a branded digression, like a commercial branded digression along the lines of Spider-Man with one of their safety videos. Yeah. What do we think? A year? Two tops? I mean, this one that you hate already is that. It just happens to be a branded digression with like red nose, dye, and comedy stuff to raise money for charity. It's already a branded digression. Yeah. Look, everyone knows charities get kind of a pass, no matter how much of a monster you are. They have to blunt a little bit your cynical angry side, where it's like, oh, it's for good cause. Whereas the Spider-Man movie is not a good cause, right? It's like another installment in a franchise that does a billion dollars regularly on opening weekends, right? It's not like, oh, we're trying to, we're wearing red noses to make children laugh or, you know, whatever. You know, it's a different thing. I granted it as an integration, but it's not the same level of crassness that just pure commercialism is. Yes. Now, here's the thing. No one wants to believe this article more than me, right? Like, you come across a story and you're like, I want to believe. But in fairness to the airlines, people evacuating with their wheelie suit cases, I'm not convinced that you can draw a straight line between that and the safety video. It is a little lacking in rigging this article. Yes. It's drawing a line between people not knowing what to do and the funny video. It's just some dude saying, oh, I reckon you shouldn't have funny videos. Yeah. But he's an aviation expert. Right. No, of course. So, yeah, he's an aviation expert. But it's a little bit like, you know, the TSA warning signs are unclear and so people are throwing pennies into the engines before they board the planes. It's like, well, I'm going to bet this has far more to do with people who are less familiar with flying more than it has to do with anything in particular. So, I'm happy to dance on the grave of these dumb safety videos more than anyone in the world. But I feel like it would be disingenuous of me to go along and say, like, oh, yes, look, look at these dumb passengers carrying their wheelies in cases. I can't draw a straight line to that. I think that's just a side effect of more people flying. I will say this, though, this new generation of safety videos that are trying to be really funny. And I'm talking about almost the second wave of funny safety videos, not the first wave of ones. They've gotten so meta that I almost do think that old-fashioned safety videos assumed knowledge, like the jokes make sense because of the way safety videos used to be. And I do think it's gotten to a point now where the default position is, look, you all know how a safety video goes. You have to watch another one now. So, to make it bearable, we're going to make it funny. But we know you already know. Because, like, the way that they show the actual safety message, like, don't do this, do this, do your belt up like this, put your bag here, don't do this on the slide, has become so stylized and so abstract that if you brought an alien from out of space and sat them on the plane and said, okay, here's the safety message for what to do if there's an emergency on the plane, they wouldn't take any information from that. That is a good defining characteristic of what is the second wave of funny videos. It's a level of meta humor. Yeah, it does make it very abstract. In addition to being just a plain old commercial, that Spider-Man safety video from the summer, it was very abstract about what are you supposed to take away from this? Yeah. I didn't mention it last time, but I think as a professional YouTuber and explainer person, if I was asked to teach a course on how to clearly communicate information, there is a frame from that Spider-Man video that I wanted to talk about last time, which is like a master class in how to hide information that really matters. It was a shot where they're like, Spider-Man's chasing some dudes through the zoo. They're showing you, perhaps the only piece of information that really matters to any flyer, which is, where's your life jacket? It's in different places depending on what kind of seat you're in. They had three different seats, so three different shots of like, here's where your life jacket is. They put it on this panel that's like a map of the zoo and the different places in the zoo that you can go, but they're airplane seats and then below it, it has a picture of where the life jacket is, and it's on the screen for like two seconds. So it's like technically we showed it. Yeah, exactly. It's like assumed, almost like it's assumed knowledge. It's like, ah, you all know there's a life jacket somewhere. Anyway, this plane isn't really going down. And we've covered our butts for legal purposes. I just found it an amazing obfuscation of the actual information that you need to know. And it is that kind of meta-joke of where we're integrating the safety video into the whole world. God, I somehow managed to get the whole summer of travel without ever seeing that BA video once. And now you've reminded me of a Brady. And it's making it all over again. Sorry. 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And you totally should too. The Audible original I've listened to most recently was called It Burns, which was an audio documentary about competitive chili eating, as well as the worldwide competition to grow the hottest chili. So if you want to give that a listen or any other of the hundreds of thousands of audiobooks that Audible has, you can start listening with a 30-day Audible trial, getting your one audiobook and two Audible originals absolutely free by visiting audible.com-hellowinternet, or text HelloInternet to 500-500. That's audible.com-a-u-d-i-b-l-e-dot-com-slash-hellointernet, all one word, or text HelloInternet, all one word to 500-500. Go give Audible a try. Thanks to Audible for giving me so many audio books to listen to, and thanks to Audible for supporting the show. Let's talk about Twitter. Okay. And I, you know, are on there at the moment, as cyclops moves into whatever iteration it moves into. But you do remember Twitter, obviously. As someone just pointed out to me today is the birthday of the Greybot 9000 creation, who now posts everything to the subreddit and all the rest of that. Happy birthday, Greybot. Yeah, that's nice. But yes, I do remember Twitter, Brady. So Twitter is putting more and more emphasis on putting into people's timelines, things that people you follow have replied to or liked. And I know there's a setting and, you know, you can change this and that, but it's not default and it seems to default back anyway. But it's got to a point now where when I'm on Twitter, because you know how, you know, attention economy and stuff like that one has to ration out how often they're talking to people in the world, I have now gotten to a point on Twitter where I am so reluctant to like something or reply it or something, because I know, I know such a massive proportion of my followers are going to see it. And I don't want them seeing like this little side conversation I'm having. I, by the way, I know I'm not the only one who thinks this because I recently got into some Twitter conversations with a few other Twitter people about it. So you probably saw something at the conversations happening because inevitably you see every conversation we have on Twitter. But I know other people feel this way too, but it's gotten to a point now where if someone says something and I've got a reply I want to make, whether it's like snarky or nice or anything, I have to really think it through now. It's like, do I want to put the spotlight on this person? Who is this person I'm putting the spotlight on? Do I have to research them first? Do I want to say, oh, that's a good point you made. And then go and look at their previous 20 tweets and find out they're like, you know, some puppy killer or something. Or do I want to give them the attention of an argument? You know, it's gotten to a point now where I almost don't want to reply or like anything. And I think it's taken away one of the nice things about Twitter, which is just that occasional ships passing in the night moment with a stranger. Now you can't be just ships passing in the night. 20,000 people have to be watching as you do it. And that makes me not want to do it. Okay, wait, I just want to clarify to make sure I understand because I remember seeing this with likes that you'd see like, oh, Brady Harron like this post. But you're saying that now all of your replies can show up as posts in other people's timelines. In other people's time like, yeah, so if you're following me, and then some friend of mine says something about the cricket, and I say, oh, yeah, wasn't that an amazing game of cricket. In your timeline, you're going to see Brady adding Billy Bloggs. And I've just replied to them. I haven't like put a dot in front of it or done anything to make it public. I've just replied, hit reply and said something to them. Now it's in your timeline. That is very interesting to me because obviously I've been away for a while. And I've been thinking a lot about, oh, how do I want to use these tools when I come back? One of the things that has been on my mind a lot is about like, okay, for me anyway, I don't think the like posting thoughts on Twitter is a thing that I really want to do in the future. Like just, you know, oh, just random thoughts about whatever. You know, we're like, oh, a thing popped into my head isn't it funny? Let me say it on Twitter. I was thinking like, okay, I probably don't want to do that. But I'm thinking like, oh, what are the good parts of Twitter? And one of the things I was thinking about was the replies. It's by far in a way, like one of the things that if I'm identifying like value that has been lost is that being able to just like reply to people I know about whatever they're up to when they're lives on Twitter. Yeah. And it was always this is valuable precisely because it is, it's not non-performative because it's still on the internet and it's public. But it isn't performative in the same way that posting or retweeting something is. And if they've changed it so that replies are posts that really does change the mental calculus of of interacting with anyone. I don't know if it's everyone or it's algorithmic. I assume it's algorithmic and not all your followers get it. And also where there are a subset of people who follow someone like Gray who might want to see every single reply you say. But I'm sure there's also a subset who don't. The conversation I had, I'll just give you a taste here. This is a conversation that got me thinking about it. That recently had Katie Maxdada who's a big Twitter user. And she wrote Twitter, please make it possible for me to occasionally reply to a strangest tweet without algorithmically pushing the entire conversation to my unsuspecting followers fees. Not every little comment needs that kind of audience. Definitely changed how I used Twitter. And I don't think in a good way. It was nice to be able to reply to someone in a casual conversational way without thrusting them into a spotlight. Now everything feels like it's just a massive performance. That's a very interesting point about perhaps the intentionality of it. Although again, I think that the people that you want to worry about most spouting off thoughtless replies also don't put in a lot of thought by definition about those replies getting amplified out to a wider group. I kind of wonder like this might be slightly serious for complaining about technology corner. But in my travels this summer, I ended up talking to people who let's say run these kind of large platforms or are able to influence these kind of large platforms and like what they're doing with algorithmic decisions. And like a thing that came up a bunch is lots of these platforms feeling, I don't know a good way to describe it that doesn't like give my hand away here. But feeling that they are responsible for shaping people's opinions through the selection of what it is that they see. And I felt very uncomfortable with some of this sort of stuff where it's like people are intentionally tweaking the algorithms to kind of get people to think what they think they should think. Well, hang on, that's a different thing. They're two different things there. But if that's the case, right, just using this specific example of this everyone now being able to see all my replies and likes. I mean, everyone can see my replies and likes anyway if they go looking for them. But in terms of having them sort of thrust upon them in their timeline, the problem with this is and the reason it's counterproductive is one of the great criticisms that social media have now is that we're all sitting in these silos and we're reinforcing our beliefs among people who are like-minded and there's no cross-pollination and discussion between people with different ideas to us. And you may argue that, oh, well, let's shine a light on these conversations that people we're having between each other who aren't necessarily like-minded as we reach consensus and reach new understandings. But what's actually happening instead is the only people I will dare like or reply to are those same four or five people who are just like me or I know really well who think like me, I know they're safe, I know if I shine a spotlight on them, it's not going to come back and bite me in the ass in one way or another. So I feel more siloed than ever before by this trend towards pushing all of my interactions out into a bigger spotlight. And I'm cross-pollinating far less than I used to. I wonder how intentional that is though. It's very interesting just to think of it in this framing of how intentional is it for putting pressure on people with audiences to be like, make sure you're totally good, 100% in every one of your interactions. I don't like the feeling of that kind of pressure. Maybe I'm thinking about it too narrowly and I am just thinking about it as someone with a slightly larger audience because of like the work I do. I think maybe I'm just this isolated case and I should be thinking about Twitter more professionally anyway and shouldn't be just replying to people willy-nilly but- The fun of the internet is a kind of serendipity. You get the best and the worst in the sort of wild west of the internet and this is very unwild westy and it just bothers me knowing that people are thinking very intentionally about how opinions form and the people who use the platforms and I want to be clear like there's no maliciousness. I actually think there's there are the number of people who are genuinely malicious in the world is quite small compared to what people sort of mentally estimate. Everybody's trying to do things for reasons that they think are right but it does still and has made me a little bit uncomfortable like the the intentionality of those kind of decisions of like how can we influence everyone on this platform away from this direction and like towards this direction even if it's meant for the for the best of all possible reasons. Well, I don't know. I feel a bit like they can't win in that case if you're having a swipe at the actual platforms themselves like they can't win either way because they're forever being condemned for being irresponsible and not told. I know. I know. I know. I know. They're platform being misused and then once they know. I'm saying. They're totally in a lose-lose situation. This is also where I don't really understand why you know in the United States, oh god I'm going to people are going to be really angry. I forget what it's called like the common carrier protection. Like I don't understand this weird distinction that these giant platforms have ended up in where they're both platforms and their publishers and they sort of get both of these things. It is a very strange situation and I completely agree with you that the moment they started curating of any kind there was a lose-lose situation from then until the end of time and there's there's no way to win and there's always going to be complaints. So yeah, I would not want any of these jobs where you have to make algorithmic or content decisions. Like those must be the most unpopular jobs in the world but nonetheless they are jobs with a lot of power or you know even these kinds of changes with Twitter like it affects the conversation. These platforms really do matter and really do shape people's opinions and so that's why there's going to be fights over precisely how they're controlled and used. Can I come back to text messages for a moment? Please get us out of here reading. We went too serious. Let's go back. We need some paper cuts and some some trivial nonsense. So I've been watching a few you know shows on Netflix lately like you do and all these modern shows trying to reflect modern contemporary life are more and more incorporating text messages and text conversations into their TV shows into the storytelling. If there's a couple of teenagers who are communicating these days they'll do it by text so let's have them in the TV show doing it by text and obviously I'm sure we've talked about this before but they have to show how do you illustrate two people having a text message and it seems to be the trendy way to do it at the moment is to have this little bubble floating next to the phone on the screen showing the text of what they've been of what's been written. My goodness could they make it any smaller? Something has to be done here because I'm watching entire TV shows like where I'm having to stand up and walk up to the TV and stand next to the TV reading it off the screen out to my wife so she knows what's being said as well because they just make him too small. I think they just out of touch with what people can read. I mean my eyesight's okay. I was going to say I mean do you have glasses breathing? Have you got in your eyes checked lately? I don't wear glasses and to be fair if I'm thinking of the main room of your house you don't have the world's largest TV and it is reasonably far away from your couch. Yeah okay yeah but not unacceptably far. I mean I do go into people's houses these days and think my goodness your TV is ridiculous how big it is and also I know a lot of people watch things on an iPad up against their face in bed myself included but just normal TV watching watching some Netflix like half the time we just like throw our arms in the air and say I will just have to guess what that text conversation was about because there's no chance we can read that right tiny they're doing it tiny I know this is an old man compliant. Brady this doesn't sound like an old man complaints that I know but these text messages are too small doesn't sound like an old man complaint in the least I'm gonna wildly disagree with you there. Do you ever notice this? I guess you never watched these shows you have a pretty epic TV and I guess you watch on your iPad a lot. Yeah we did get a pretty big TV and we're I think we're not as far from it as you are. As far as your TV I don't think you're as far from it there's safe. This text message is let the Hollywood sign for you guys. Yes but we can read them most of the time. I guess Mike my complaint I'm thinking of I think it was the epic and sadly defunct YouTube channel every frame of painting I think they did a video going through a bunch of different samples of texting in movies. Okay. And just to show like how people do it and the thing that I'm much more aware of is I often think in movies like do people care like has someone put effort into this movie and the worst effort is simply showing it the actual phone on screen with whatever text message has been written in there. Often hilariously at the bottom of a completely brand new text message conversation right where no no words have ever been exchanged before between this husband and wife and they're just sending one i message into a blank void and it's like oh come on guys. But I think you have to show the phone if you're making like a real film like you couldn't do that in like Star Wars could you you couldn't have like someone look at their communicator and have some text on the screen like a speech bubble and you couldn't do it in the godfather something like that like if it's real you have to see the real thing. I think there's a certain level of trashiness you have to reach before you can use bubbles popping up on the screen. I actually I'm going to disagree with you there. I think even in a modern like quote serious film you know like like you're watching some David Fincher film. Text messages the ideal way to do it is for us all to agree that text messages are a kind of closed captioning and don't put bubbles up on the screen you know unless you're making like a chick flick and that's in the style of the movie like it's not entirely serious. I think you can just frame your character so that there is some blank space next to them like a wall and you can just write out the words on that wall you can dispense with all the chrome of what text messages look like because all of that will be out of date eventually anyway and make your movie look ridiculous. And just just treat it like it's a kind of closed captioning and I don't think that breaks immersion. The problem is the two ends of it the extreme laziness of just showing a phone which often isn't very clear to read. And then on the other end the way too over the topness where they're trying to be flashy about look at our text aren't we so clever showing the text message right like you do this animation. My particular annoyance in this is when they use YouTuber 101 after effect skills to track the motion of the phone with the bubble and it's like guys guys a thousand times too flashy for a movie. So my request to all filmmakers is just write the words on a wall and I think you can do that in a way that doesn't break immersion that though I haven't seen it I'm sure would be able to be done well in the godfather for when they have cell phones. I think you could do that even in a serious movie. Okay do you not think so? Do you think it has to be on the phone if it's a serious movie? I still feel like it could be I'd want to see it on the phone if it was like the godfather. I think it would break immersion. But you know I was going to say you know Martin Scorsese wouldn't use that but then someone's going to show me some film where he did so I don't know what you say makes sense I don't mind them coming up in bubbles just the bubbles are too small for me. You're right it does date the film you're right that after a fix tracking thing can look silly. That's a real new film maker move. I mean that's exactly what was happening in the thing I've been watching I've been watching there's no point not saying I've been watching sex education on Netflix and that's where they've been using it and that's where I found it too small and they do have the after effects bubble tracking the phone as it moves in their hand and stuff so if people want to go and check out the example of what I mean. Yeah and you you can judge for yourself if the text is too small but yeah having a hard time thinking of it now even though I've watched a hundred million of these YouTube essays on like the language of cinema like there are things in movies that just don't directly portray real life and we kind of understand this is a movie and this is yeah how movies communicate things and I genuinely think the text message can be a new kind of thing like that that we just agree that their captions. I mean subtatos for people speaking other languages that does happen in the Godfather movies and in Star Wars. Yeah although not with Joey but with Guido and everyone else. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah look you can't subtitle the funny characters because then that ruins the joke right whatever R2D2 is whistling about it's way funnier if you don't caption him than if you do so you just you leave that out of there yeah although wait a minute didn't they caption Chewie and Solo I think they did I think they did caption him no I think they did I think they did in the scene where where they first meet and Han Solo is trying to speak the wiki language I think they captioned Chewie. Did they caption them in the Star Wars Christmas special I don't know and I don't want to find out. 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need to brag this just like coffee is a thing that my wife introduced to my life and then it becomes like a vital fluid of existence yeah and I mentioned this this a while back like man I just been drinking so much sparkling water so much sparkling water that I worry about hypohydrosis as a side effect so like for sure switching from regular water to water with bubbles in it I think has multiplied my water intake by five why well I don't know why it's a thing that I've mentioned to people and has been this like topic of conversation sometimes where I have discovered that everybody who drinks sparkling water says the exact same thing they say oh yeah once I started drinking sparkling water I drink way more water than I used to in the past like without exception this is what everyone says and I've talked to people who end up like I don't know some kind of drug aficionado installing custom sparkly water creation systems in their home like built into the bar so that they can always have on tap like the maximum sparkle at any moment that's cool it does sound very cool it is the thing that I've been wondering about like well you know now that we have air conditioning maybe this is the next step so like I talked about this with with so many people and then I started commenting about like it's really weird that it's such a universal experience and then someone told me they go oh don't you know that there's salt and sparkling water oh because it's mineral water yeah so like I have drank basically a liter of sparkling water in the time that we have recorded this podcast so far and if I look on the back of it it's like oh yeah there's .04 milligrams of salt in this sparkling water and I've been checking it up like different bottles have different amounts but there's always some that doesn't seem that much to me well here's the thing like I looked at regular water or mineral water and it doesn't have salt in it but this stuff does and so I thought well let me google around on the internet and see what the deal is because suddenly I'm wondering like wait a minute is this the nicotine version of water they're putting something in the water that makes me more thirsty the more I drink it and then this explains the the universal behavior in everyone and I was unable to find any satisfactory answer about I don't know what we would be looking for like the quenchiness of drinking sparkling water versus drinking regular water so I figured I would take this big big important platform that we have here Brady to ask the Tim's if there is anybody who's like a professional water researcher I like you Brady I think that doesn't seem like it's a lot of salt but I have to know am I not actually getting anywhere by drinking sparkling water do they put the salt in there to make me drink more and if the answer is no then why on earth does everybody drink so much more sparkling water at least with the coffee the coffee I totally know oh there's an addictive drug in there that's why I drink so much of it great nice and clear but the sparkling water I don't understand what the situation is here and now I need to know I need to know and I need the Tim's to help find the answer to this can someone do a study if a study doesn't exist I want an answer you haven't asked me I know why sparkling water is consumed more I'm sorry Brady can you tell me the answer to why sparkling water is consumed more because it's got bubbles and bubbles are fun like I'm not even joking it's like having a lemonade or something it's like why do they put bubbles in Coca-Cola and all those soft drinks and that like I think they do that because it just it makes the drinking experience more pleasurable it feels nicer in your mouth and tickles your lips and like it's just feels it's nice mouth feel and like water which is the most boring drink in the world how can we make it more exciting but keep it still keep it like you know healthy and not full of sugar and stuff all that's at least juxtapose bubbles in there that doesn't hurt anyone it's just a pleasant experience it's like a little massage for your lips every time you have a sip I find this answer unsatisfying but perhaps not wrong yeah and the other interesting thing is like okay so you're comment about regular water being boring is totally true in ways that I cannot explain regular water also has a high variability in pleasantness sensation even in my own home using the same water filter from the same water source sometimes drinking water just feels kind of gross in a way that is hard to articulate and sometimes it's the most refreshing drink in the whole wide world it's also about temperature when I go downstairs and I want to have a drink and I look at the tap and think I could have a glass of water and then I open the fridge and I look oh there's a can of diet coke or something I always end up going for the diet coke or the lemonade or something and it's not just because of the nice sweetness it's because it's going to be bubbly and it's going to be ice cold when it hits the back of my throat and I want that feeling of the cold and sparkling water does that too it gives you the bubbles and it gives you the cold hit I do I do think the sugar is doing the heavy lifting in that comparison for why do you grab the one versus the other do you know what Gray I honestly honestly think it's not the heavy lifting it is sometimes a factor it is oftentimes a factor but sometimes I just want something I want it to be so cold it almost hurts and the bubbleiness is just nice it's nice you know why not make drinking water nicer by making it cold and bubbly I know there's a reason and I'm sure having carbon dioxide makes certain valves open when they shouldn't and things like that and you know so go ahead read it you you may be totally right it may just be a kind of habit reward loop but I really want the tims to go deep on this one because the salt is making me suspicious and the universality of the response is also making me suspicious and the amount of water that we buy is at the maximum that will be delivered to our house on a weekly basis and we're still burning through it how much are you weighing more than I used to that's what happens it's got to go somewhere it's good to be drinking so much water the dose makes the poison I'm worried I'm worried about how close am I how close am I getting to that dose 90% of my consumption at this point is coffee and sparkling water I'm not a doctor but I feel quite a little confident in saying you are a long long way from being anywhere near the point where you are going to poison yourself with water I hope so Brady I hope so do you feel up for a bit of sports ball corner I've picked one that I think's in the grey wheelhouse dreaded run from it sports ball still arrives this one I felt passionately about for an hour or two and I thought this is one for grey okay gambling on sport particularly football is like just gone crazy big business in the UK like to a point that I think is concerning but that's a talk for another day I'm sure before you go any further because I never I never really quite understand the gambling situation in the UK but yeah like I see those licensed or I presume they're licensed out yeah like shop little shopfronts yeah like these shopfronts that are clearly sports gambling venues are those the like the only legal way or no that's the tip of the iceberg it's all apps now okay it's a million different apps everyone does it on their phone okay but so gambling online on sports in the UK is legal yes and huge interesting huge business you can't watch football now without a million ads for telling you to get your app and do this and you can bet on everything it's not just betting on who's going to win you'll bet on like little micro events within a game like who's going to get the next corner kick or who's going to do this and do that so it's like up to your eyeballs with betting right okay and an interesting fact I read when I was reading a bit about this was that in England's not the top tier the Premier League but the next one down which is called the championship I think it has 22 or 24 clubs teams and all of them have like a shirt sponsor like a name emblazoned across the front of their shirt that someone pays to have so it could be you know Coca-Cola or you know Toyota or something okay and they're usually pretty prestigious things you pay a club a lot of money to have a sponsorship on the shirt there 16 of the clubs in that English division their shirt sponsor is a betting firm it's an online like betting firm which I find remarkable and anyway the story that brought it to a head for me and the thick the moment I said enough happened last week and that was one of these teams in this in the championship division Derby Derby County their coat and they have managed to sign Wayne Rooney who was a footballer even you may have heard of yes I've heard of Wayne Rooney he played for Manchester United and he's at the twilight of his career now and doing this thing these players do at the end of their career where they cash in by signing for a few other clubs he's just played a season or two over in America for I think the Washington DC club where he's earning loads of money and they can say look we've got Wayne Rooney playing for us so what he's done is he's signed and agreed to play for Derby next season and even though they're in a lower league than the top league he's an older player now and part of like the deal is he's going to start taking on coaching responsibilities and things like that as he prepares for the next stage of his career right what emerged in the hours that followed the announcement was that the way Derby was able to get all this money to buy a Wayne Rooney for a season was there the betting firm that sponsor their shirt had stumped up the money and it just so happens this betting firm is called 32 red okay they're one of the bigger ones they're one of the more famous ones and here finally we're getting to the point of my conversation sorry it took so long no no we're following the shaggy dog it's fine exactly here's where the shaggy dog upsets Brady the condition of the deal was that Wayne Rooney's number on his shirt like his official playing number is going to be 32 they've like essentially bought the number and here's where you'll call me naiv or silly but I feel like the shirt numbers are one of like the few remaining sacred things that you know have some reason behind them sentimentality or serendipity or things like that or they used to be associated with a position you played that seems to be less the case now and I know shirt numbers have been used for marketing and sport for a long time Michael Jordan famously wore number 23 and now that you can buy Nike products with 23 all over them but that was kind of the horse leading the cart yeah yeah this feels like the cart leading the horse where he's agreed to wear a shirt number and not just the shirt number of a company but the shirt number of a gambling company this like industry this insidious industry that's ruining lives and families and things like that it felt dirty and low and wrong you know I can sympathize with you Brady I really can't I'm not gonna poo you on this one right because I can see that you're looking at the numbers so much on the players shirts and they become associated with the players that it's part of like the sacredness of the game yeah and like kids will wear the number of their favorite players on their shirts like when they buy their replica shirts that they kick the football down at the park I want to be like Wayne Rooney where I grow up I'm gonna get a diabetes shirt with number 32 on it because that's what Wayne Rooney wears and now it's oh it's 32 because it's 32 red get your app now place a bet get five dollars credit on your first bet I can understand that this this feels like it's over the line and even in our modern world there are some sacred boundaries the safety video in an airplane that's posted in for me how to save your life and those boundaries get crossed and we never go back and I think it's also just I don't know that like the gambling industry is it's a strange industry this is coming from a man who like I love Las Vegas that you know the city built on losers but I you know I don't gamble myself but there's something about the gambling industry where what is occurring it's so naked and raw it's like the mechanism just exposed and you're looking directly into it whereas the sparkling water industry it's a little bit more obfuscacious like what's occurring with the addiction here but the gambling one is just like it's so clear the numbers are all out there for you that that you are totally gonna lose and then on top of that like the problem here is is also the implicitness that kids love sports and it's the start of gambling at that much younger age in the same way I think you know if there was a cigarette company called black 18 I'm not sure I don't know how this works but like I don't think that that would be a thing that could happen in the sports world at this point I think there'd be too much pushback on something like that but maybe I'm wrong I don't know what cigarettes yeah I mean cigarette advertising has been banned in sport for a long time so I'm not wrong about that like the cultural acceptance of this is just no way like at the moment you can go back and watch like old sports footage from the 80s and 90s in this cigarette advertising all over everything and it seems like almost funny now and I think that's what's gonna be like with gambling in 10 years it's gonna be can you believe that they're allowed to advertise like this in sport it's so reckless I mean all advertising is naughty but it's so naughty the way they make the gambling like it's like guys together having fun like sometimes you watch an ad for these gambling things during a football game and it looks more like an ad for having pizza with your mates and having a good time watching football then squandering away your family's mortgage payments so not a fan of the gambling industry then really just lately know it's become too much I don't mind gambling I will occasionally bet on like a horse race once every couple of years and I'll have a flutter with a casino and stuff like that I'm not like you know repure it and about it but I think that gambling in sport our phones have made it so easy yeah to just constantly be constantly placing bets and it's not become like a treat or an occasional thing or an event it's just become like checking your tweets and that's where I think it's gotten dangerous like I know people who gamble on sport and it is just like that it's just like quickly between drinks I might as well get out my phone on board well let's let's have a quick 10 pound bet just to fill the time I guess that that's also the issue that there's so much to bet on in sports like yeah like there's all of these little events I've long been in favor of you should be able to bet on politics but like in the United States betting on politics is illegal but I think part of that is is like well it only happens every two or four years some political race so you can't be taking out your pocket every couple minutes and placing another bet on like the over under four district seven or whatever yeah that's an interesting distinction with the sports gambling I think it is right that you can't bet on elections actually because the people placing the bets are participating in the result so if I've bet on party eight or win the election and then I go out and bet on party eight just to fulfill a bet then a I'm fixing the result admittedly only minutely but I'm fixing the result of my bet and it's corrupting the purpose of the election just the same way the athletes participating in sport unallowed to bet on the sport they're playing in like the football is unallowed to bet on who's going to get the next corner because then they can just like rig that part of the game so the sports thing is like I'll totally grant that yeah you can't have I think as we've discussed on the show you can't have the players betting on the outcome that just seemed like it's too much I think on the sliding scale of how much control you have over the outcome there's a huge difference yes whereas the control is basically totally within the realm of the sports player and is divided by one one millionth when you talk about voting itself obviously that's true intellectually I agree with you right like intellectually I agree with you and I understand why it's not legal but there's some part of me emotionally it's always like why can't I bet on an election outcome there's some part of me which feels like this this seems like a dumb arbitrary bet barrier you can bet on election outcomes for other countries can't you like you could bet on the outcome of a US election here in England couldn't you the United States does many things by citizenship not by location so it might not actually be legal for me to bet on US elections even if I was broad so I don't know the answer to that question but yeah I'll have to investigate and get back to you on that Brady okay I'm also very willing to bet that the overlap in the way people bet and the way people vote would be incredibly high like I think you'd end up with like a 95% overlap you'd only get a tiny 5% differential of people who want to hedge their bets right so this so they feel like they win either way like they get to vote for the party they want but they bet on the party they don't want winning so at least this way they get money as compensation for an unhappy outcome but I think the overlap would be huge in the same direction so I have a little bit of possible homework for the Tim's something to watch before next time if you're if you're up for a Brady but there was a movie that came up in youtuber circles quite frequently as a movie to watch called Ingrid goes west have you seen Ingrid goes west if not okay I'm going to put this as homework as like perhaps an interesting movie to talk about simply because sort of relates to the modern world and to social media and I think I think it might be just just something interesting to touch upon for next time it's not exactly like a like a chick flick episode here but it's this is like chick flick adjacent for for Ingrid goes west so I'm going to put that down as some homework if you're interested Brady and if the Hello Internet listeners are interested for next time or you know when we get to it

References[edit | edit source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 "H.I. #128: Complaint Tablet Podcast". Hello Internet. Retrieved 31 August 2019. 
  2. ""H.I. #128: Complaint Tablet Podcast" – Archived via Archive.today on August 31, 2019, 19:16:20 (UTC)". YouTube. Hello Internet. Archived from the original on 31 August 2019. Retrieved 1 September 2019. 
  3. "Hello Internet – Archived via the Wayback Machine on August 31, 2019, 19:17:57 (UTC)". Overcast. Hello Internet. Archived from the original on 31 August 2019. Retrieved 1 September 2019. 
  4. ""H.I. #128: Complaint Tablet Podcast" – Archived via Archive.today on September 7, 2019, 14:56:07 (UTC)". YouTube. Hello Internet. Archived from the original on 7 September 2019. Retrieved 7 September 2019.