Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Rhett. And I’m Link. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we tackle the question what would you do if robots took your job? All of a sudden– We have a whole– Due to automation– Season of television about this, Link. Your career needs to change. Yeah that’s right, Buddy– This is the inciting event of Buddy System season two. That’s right. Not to promote that but we could promote it. What did you do when you lost your job to robots? Well we can talk about that when we talk about it. Yeah because there’s a lot of parallels between our Buddy System season two characters and the real us even though it’s us in a parallel universe. By the way, they’re releasing Buddy System season two– I don’t know if we’re– In front of the paywall at some point so be– Some point, yeah. Be looking for that. We’ll make a big deal about it when it’s all there. Seasons one and two but if you’re gonna only watch one, watch season two. That’s confusing. Unintentional plug. I guess you can watch season one but anyway, yeah, there’s some robot stuff happening there. And just let me say this whole conversation– Say? It spawned from a Reddit session. You call them sessions? Yeah I have a Reddit session as I’m sleeping. Well . I sleep. I don’t know how that works. As I’m going to sleep in my bed so that’s another thing we may need to tackle is if that’s a good habit but I went down this Reddit rabbit trail which meanders through manufacturing processes, some eerie anecdotes and lands smack-dab on you. Oh I’m featuring in this Reddit thread directly? Well I don’t wanna say too much but I will say– Wow. You know what, yes. This Reddit thread that was featured on the home page had nothing absolutely in the world to do with you, us, anything to do with us at all. Somehow involved you. Wow. I’m suddenly interested. And that took– So it was a wild ride on Reddit and I wanna take you back through it. I’m planning to participate in this discussion. The robots are gonna take over at some point in our conversation. Okay. But we’re gonna land on you inexplicably. Great. Well, I’ll explain it, but it’s unexpected. Okay. Before we get into that, I do want to tell you something that happened to me at a party. First of all, let me just say that– You’re a party animal. Say it. I have been so occupied in the evenings. Tonight will mark the sixth straight night that I have had something that is like kind of like an involved– An obligation. Obligation. An out of the home thing. And this one tonight, my wife is actually gonna go with me and we’re going, I’ll just say, we’re going to the Mayans MC season two premiere. That’s right. To support our friend Kurt Sutter. And this is the one that Jessie’s going with me to, and this morning I was like, “You ready for tonight?” And she was like, “What?” Again? She was like, “You’re going somewhere again?” I was like, “You’re going with me,” and it didn’t seem to make a difference. Yeah that’s why Christy’s not going. I am going, I’m going with you and Jessie and I guess Stevie’s my date. Yeah. ‘Cause Christy, yeah she’s like, “Listen. “This has been too much stuff happening.” And I mean if it wasn’t for a sense of, well, I wanna go for what it is but I don’t wanna go because it’s just going somewhere else. I understand that. And I said, “Listen–” And I’m almost like, “You’re going, that’s good enough “as if both of us are going. “That’s enough support,” but that’s kinda lame, I’m not gonna do that. Well I appreciate that. I could change my mind. I could bail. I wouldn’t be surprised if you did but I certainly hope you go, but it has been too much and then I say, “This is not typical,” and she’s like, “You always say that.” But it isn’t, I don’t do things six nights in a row. It’s not typical. That’s not the kind of life I have, man. Right, by the way I have something the next two nights too ’cause that’s another factor. Oh really? Yeah I got like– Well maybe you’ll beat my streak. Welcome back to school nights, two different schools. In the end you will probably tie me. I did something on Thursday and then on Saturday. You only did something on Friday. We went to the Kacey Musgraves concert with our wives. That was– Fabulous. That’s a great time. I love that woman. Yeah ’cause I went to The Rolling Stones concert the night before. Oh you did go to The Rolling Stones concert. Yeah man I’m tempted to talk about that. First of all, I frickin’ love Kacey Musgraves. I mean, she’s, the album is amazing. She played most of it. It was wonderful. It’s exactly what I love to listen to. But I gotta say, seeing The Rolling Stones, who I would not call myself a huge Stones fan before going to see them, that was absolutely amazing. Everybody in the Rose Bowl was just in awe of the fact that these, how old did I say Mick was? 76? 76 years old, four months after having a heart valve replacement surgery, he’s struttin’ around the stage for two hours, going an estimated 14 miles total. So crazy, I don’t know, it’s just– And they sounded good. It’s ’cause the devil’s in him. That’s how he’s able to do it. He had sympathy for the devil. Man, me and Britton had a great time. It was his treat. It was a long time comin’ ’cause the heart valve replacement but man I get it. I get the Stones now, I feel like I’m an insider. I got the lips and the tongue on my shirt. Oh gosh. Good, best band logo maybe of all time. It is, I kinda feel like going to The Rolling Stones and then Kacey Musgraves– Back to back, baby. It’s not the ideal, because you’re gonna– Yeah. You’re gonna judge Kacey Musgraves’ show-womanship versus The Rolling Stones which is just, she’s doing a different thing. Oh absolutely, but anyway, you went to a party. I went to the one thing that you didn’t go to. And let’s call it a fundraiser, it was a fundraiser for a charity that we’re involved with, and there was a guy there who I’ve met a couple of times. He’s a older guy and he’s older than me, and super nice guy and we were having a bunch of interesting conversations about some stuff that he was involved with, but one of the things that he needed to show me, we got into a conversation about jackfruit. Jackfruit. Yeah, and I recently had seen how big a jackfruit could be. Have you seen how big a jackfruit could be? I can’t even say I know what a jackfruit actually is. Okay so you know– Like a grapefruit? No, not like a grapefruit. So you know when you go to a vegan restaurant and they’ve got barbecue but it’s not barbecue, it’s something else. Oh yeah. Often it’s this jackfruit thing. Kinda stringy. Yes. It’s got an interesting texture to it. That’s jackfruit and so yeah, looks like that. And it’s kinda spiky on the outside. It’s green, the color of an avocado, it’s shaped like, how big is it? Okay well how big would you think that that was just looking at it? It looked about as big as an avocado or an apple. It’s this big. What? They can be 70, this guy said– Twice the size of an average watermelon? Yeah so– What? Yeah so when I went to– Good gracious. That fruit is jacked. This guy’s actually helping to import some jackfruit into California and jackfruit is exploding in popularity, right? So and I had just with Locke at the grocery store a week ago had seen a jackfruit and I was like, how in the, that’s a jackfruit, it’s that big? And we almost got it as a gag gift for Jessie. Like let’s bring home this jackfruit and see what she does with it, ’cause it was just so big. Anyway, we start talking about the business that he’s involved in in getting jackfruits in and he’s like, “Oh I gotta show you this one I found.” So he takes out his phone, he begins scrolling through his photos and he’s like, “Okay, “hold on. “No, I’m getting close. “No, that’s, okay,” just moving his thumb like this and just rifling through hundreds, thousands– Uh-huh. Of photos. Okay. Two and a half minutes into the scrolling and just saying, “Hold on I’m almost there, just give me a sec,” I begin to think that I am the victim of a YouTube prank video. You started looking around for cameras? I begin to think that I might be on What Would You Do with Quinones which incidentally I think is a YouTube channel now. What Would You Do if somebody scrolled forever? How long would it take in their scrolling for you to just jump in and stop ’em. Did you think about that? Hey man, you know what, just email it to me. Well at one point I was like, “Yeah yeah, “I know they’re big, man.” I was like, “Yeah I saw one at the grocery store.” He’s like, “No no, you gotta see this one.” Two and a half minutes is a long time to watch somebody scroll. Are you looking over his shoulder on his phone and is he scrolling through nothing but photos of jackfruit? Lots of photos of fruits. Oh really? And the things that he imports. He’s like, “This is my girlfriend and this is when “we went to the beach,” you know– No no– “This is my dog.” He is rifling through a grid of photos. There was like a wound on my dog. I had to send this picture to the vet. No no he’s not giving any commentary on the stuff that he’s scrolling through, he’s just saying, there, and you keep thinking, okay here, and then it’s not there and then he keeps going. Now you know me, I’m a nice man. And I– You’re nicer to strangers. I have a high tolerance for this kind of behavior. I don’t know if it’s average tolerance, it’s either average or higher tolerance. Well you have a higher tolerance than I do. Oh hell yeah. Let’s at least say that. And so then it was like, what am I gonna do? I had time to start having an existential crisis. ‘Cause every time I’d look back he was just saying, “Hold on. “Here we go, here we go, no no.” And so, I was just like I guess I’m just gonna stay here in the moment. I’m gonna let this guy find his big ass jackfruit. And then when I see it, I’m gonna be really impressed. So I did that. Well there’s kind of a lot of build up so– It was pretty big. Oh so he did find it. It is really big. He found it? Yeah yeah it was very large. You’re not even telling that part of the story. You’re like oh yeah he did find it. So what the story’s over? It was 70. Tell me about the frickin’ jackfruit. 70 pounds, the jackfruit was 70 pounds. 70 pounds. That tall, three feet tall, I don’t know. Good gosh, what gave you a sense of scale? Was he holding a penny in his foot? Him. Him holding it. Him holding it. Good gosh, they can get, jackfruits can get big. Wow, wow wow wow. I bet they don’t taste as good. Of course they never taste like– It’s like a big catfish, you don’t want a real big catfish. It never tastes like pork. You could put feet on that and a snout and it would be like a vegan pig. It’s literally as big as a pig. Jackfruit takes on the flavors of whatever, it’s a lot like tofu, takes on the flavors. But let’s get back to the scrolling ’cause I do want to talk about that. Well you know what, he got back to the scrolling. Again? After he found the jackfruit. He’s a scroller. Another, I lost count, three to four times, he had something in his mind that he wanted to show me and he would go back to the photos and then, I don’t think it was ever as long as that first time but I was like, this is like a Seinfeld episode if Seinfeld was made in 2019. He’s the scroller. Now you know what, somebody needs to talk to him ’cause he’s too dependent on photos. He needs to just do hand gestures. You know how like– It was this big. Or pick up a small child and be like, “It was this big.” Or make it his wallpaper. If the anecdote comes up that often, you need to have it printed on a business card. I think this is the perfect example of why you need favorites. You need to take advantage of your favorites feature on your photo collection. Yeah you’re talking about makin’ an album. If you need, oh, here’s the photo of me with my kids, here’s the photo of the big-ass jackfruit that I love to talk about. The stories I always tell but then spend way too much time scrolling for the payoff photo album. That’s what you call it. Yes. I’ve actually thought a lot about this. Okay good. Pausing a story to scroll, because actually on the way to The Rolling Stones concert, we were in an Uber, Britton and I were both in the backseat and this guy was like, this guy was coming on strong. He wanted to know everything about us and– Really? Inquisitive Uber drivers, those are the worst. He had something hanging from his mirror that said Phish, the band. Uh-oh. So then Britton starts talking about Phish so then literally for 20 minutes, the two of them are just talking about Phish and I’m like this is great. I don’t wanna be a part of this. I’m just over here looking out the window, looking at my phone. But the guy, he made such a connection with Britton, he was like oh he’s an artist. He was like I used to be a producer but I only charged $15 an hour and– That didn’t last long. He had this hard luck story and then he’s like, “Give me your information to put in my phone. “Let me give you my information to put in your phone,” so he made Britton put his name and number in his phone and then he’s like, and then he pulls up a notepad and he’s writing down Britton’s information, I’m like, he’s not coming for me. He’s like, “What about you? “What’s your name?” It’s like 30 minutes in the conversation. Charles, that’s when you say Charles. I think I said, I think I said Link because maybe, I was thinking about that. You have the best excuse in the world. I say James quite a bit. At Starbucks my frickin’ name is James. He was like, “And what do you do for a living?” And I was like, I froze. And then I was like, “I’m a video producer.” I did not, this is the last guy on earth I wanted to get– Video producer. He was like what kind of videos, I was like– Digital. I was like, I was like, “Corporate videos.” No, what, you lied, man. I said I make corporate, well– We are a corporation. I make videos on a corporate platform. Google is a corporation. We’re a corporation, yeah. And we’re a corporation so– Yeah you didn’t lie. On a couple of levels I make corporate videos and I said, “I like to think that if people don’t watch “my videos they would die.” What was Britton doing when you said corporate videos? Corporate videos are typically like safety videos. I never made eye contact with Britton. I was pretty ashamed of what I was doing. I’m a video producer of corporate videos. My name is Charles, please stop talking. What was my point, oh yeah, and then he goes back to talking about the Phish concert– Hey, mission accomplished, man. Mission accomplished and he’s like, he’s like, “Man I was on the front row of this show,” and he starts scrolling through his– He’s scrolling and driving? He’s scrolling and driving, well we’re in bumper to bumper traffic in the Rose Bowl. Got it, all right. We’re trapped with this guy. It could be an hour. Trapped with a scroller. And now he’s scrolling and his phone’s up there mounted. I mean I’m like, should I look away? Should I look at his photos? He’s not scrolling that quickly and he’s saying things. He was like, “Oh this is me and my girl at the beach, “and this is like a screen shot I took of something,” it’s like– Oh well at least he’s a commentary-laden scroller which is better than a non-commentary scroller. But I feel like you should look away. It’s kinda like when somebody’s entering their password, like if you wanna help somebody with their laptop like an in-law or something, you wanna avert your eyes when they put their password in, you know what I’m saying? I do, I don’t see how it’s relevant but I appreciate. Well when somebody’s scrolling through their entire photo life– You’re seeing into their life. Just to get to a jackfruit, you never know what you might see and I don’t, there’s lots of things I don’t wanna see an Uber driver do, you know what I’m saying? Okay got it, yeah. You know? That’s a different album. I’d like to see him just drive and be quiet. He actually talked about, he made a comment about, “Man, I really enjoy talking to you,” and this is in the middle of the conversation, not the end. Talking to Britton, he was like, “‘Cause a lot of people “get in the car and they’re like, “they’re like, they’ll just be quiet. “I’m like I’m a human, you’re a human.” And I’m thinking, that’s me, man. I don’t really think you can call that a. I know, he was kind of harsh. I mean some people just don’t wanna have a conversation. And then he’s like, “I’m coming to this show later.” And then he’s like, “I’m gonna pull you guys right up here,” and he’s like, he goes through the parking and they were charging 20 bucks for parking. He was like, “I’m just dropping these guys off,” so they let him go through and then he’s like, “I’m not leaving,” and then it dawns on me as he’s pulling into a parking space, this guy’s gonna be with us all night. And then he’s like, he’s parking the car, he’s like, “I’m gonna give you five stars and I’m coming to the show,” it’s like, “Do you guys have an extra ticket?” And I was like, “No,” thank goodness we don’t have an extra ticket. I’m coming to the show, do you have an extra, you’re not coming to the show unless you can get a ticket. Right so then we split up but for a second I thought he was gonna be with us all night because he already had a ticket. I think you would have shut that down. I would have, absolutely. I think even I would have shut that down. But I wouldn’t have stared at his scrolling. See I’m still, I’m human. And I think people who have a low capacity or a high capacity for tolerating scrolling have a low capacity for exposing people to scrolling. Sure. I’ve got like, I’ll scroll for 12 seconds, then I feel like I’m inconveniencing somebody and then I’m like, you know what, don’t worry about it. I think I’ll Google photos. You can type in jackfruit and it would literally pull up– You can do that on the iPhone as well. And I almost told him that but I just didn’t– Of course it will pull up 3000 images– I kept thinking he was gonna find it. For him. Right. So– All right so we can talk about that forever but we’re gonna talk about– Let’s go down another– Robots. Wild rabbit trail. But first, you can get this shirt that I’m wearing which is part of the Post-Apawcalypse Collection at Mythical.com. This is one of three different shirts you can get. There’s also, I don’t know what’s still there. We got hats, we got a bandana, we got sweatpants. The sweatpants were a big hit. Yeah and I think those are still up there. Get ’em while they’re still there. Lots of stuff constantly updated at Mythical.com. Rep ya boys, check it out, support internetainment and feel good, like it literally feels good to wear stuff. It feels good and it’s just a cool shirt. You’re not like hey. If you’re the kinda person who’s like, hey I’m a fan of this show and you don’t wanna be that person where you’re like, hey, I got a cool shirt on. This is for the cool shirt folks. Okay let’s get into this. I have this habit of laying in bed and I just pull up the Reddit thread because it just sends me into a world that’s not my own. There’s many things, many threads that I follow that are relaxing, educational, entertaining, mesmerizing, but in no way related to my work, whereas if I pull up Twitter then that’s a problem because I feel like even if I just look at tweets of comedians, I start to get anxiety. Interesting. Ang-xiety, with a G. ‘Cause I just feel like, it’s the social media trap of comparison, I think I do it on that level, on some sort of professional level. I don’t tweet, I’m not funny, oh. And then even on Instagram, I know we did a whole episode about it but that’s starting to creep in, so a little bit of that. But it’s mostly just like exotic locations that I look at on Instagram and that’s not deep enough. I need something deeper and Reddit gives me my fix. So let me take you on a journey. I think, yeah, this was, no this wasn’t the popular page. It was posted in a couple of different threads. But the one that I follow is educational GIFs or GIFs if you will. And the title of the post is, this is how canning process is done. Exclamation point. And then it’s a re-post or an imbed post of, from the Reddit thread manufacturing porn called Codi canning process, exclamation point. You know when you hear canning process, it might sound boring but if you add an exclamation point at the end, I’m listening. This is how it’s made. So yeah, it’s a video of a can of what appears, what is beer. I couldn’t tell what it was ’cause it’s like, it’s not a can that I would recognize. Maybe Codi is a name brand, I actually don’t know. So this video’s cool because yes, of course it loops, but it shows three different steps in the manufacturing process before it loops, so it starts and you see ’em spinning on the lid of a can. And I had never really understood, I was really drawn in, I never really understood that the top of a can, like where you pop it open, that sealed on. I never thought about it. Right. And then the camera moves, after it shows you a number of these lids being slapped on the cans, then it moves earlier in the process and shows you, right before the, no, that’s later in the process, it twists the can lid and spins off all the beer foam and then it goes earlier in the process and shows you all this foamy beer coming out before the lid is slapped on. I think this GIF is just looping in the wrong place or maybe, ’cause this is the beginning coming in, coming in with the beer. See the beer coming in with all the foam, then they scrape the foam off and then they throw a lid on and the way that the lid slides on is just– I never thought about the fact that– Nice. You know ’cause it’s contents under pressure, does that mean that it’s extra carbonated when it goes in? Is that why, I would think with that much foam at the top there would be more foam underneath the surface and so when you end up getting a can of beer, it would have like an inch missing of beer ’cause the foam would have just turned into liquid. But it’s completely full. I just don’t understand how this process leads to that. ‘Cause it’s like overflowing right there. Yeah they fill it up to where the foam is all the way at the top and then they smash the lid down so there is some pressure and it’s probably from the carbonation of the beer or whatever you would call it. See this is where you’re going and if you were a commenter, this is what you might comment. And if you knew that, so you might ask that question, if someone would come in and answer the question, and then the rest of us would learn that. So whenever I watch a video like this, first of all, I’m mesmerized by it and then I’m just, I’m like there’s 343 comments under this video. Mm-hmm. I wonder where it goes and I wonder what most people have engaged in which will rise to the top if you don’t use Reddit. I’m just giving you a little background. So it could be anything, they could be talking about anything and the first comment, the beginning of my journey, says F word. I’m not gonna say it. Let’s just not. Those machines must suck to maintain. So we got a Debbie Downer right at the top of this thread. People talk about how unclean it is because basically, there’s beer foam going all over the can and then in the next step, they spin the can at a rapid, aggressive speed and then this beer foam goes everywhere. So this is what someone commented and then everybody seemed to engage under this one comment. Yeah so the person says those machines must suck to maintain, of course, I’m like yeah, I was kinda thinking that myself now that you mention it. And then the person says, someone else responds, sticky, smelly mess. Don’t forget that. But clearly, that is not really the case. Beer is a perishable product. Those machines are cleaned religiously because otherwise beer won’t have a long shelf life due to contamination. It can be sticky during the shift but overall, it’s kept clean. I worked for a hotdog manufacturer and every single machine was deconstructed, soaped up, scrubbed and rinsed, then reassembled at the end of every shift. At this point I’m like dang, I’m taking a journey to the end of a hotdog shift. And they’re frickin’ disassembling the entire machinery, washing it all down. I know you’re going other places but I have to say that why can’t they just steam the whole thing? Why can’t there just be a steam component that comes in and just blasts it with steam and soap and stuff, why can’t it be self-cleaning? I don’t understand why you can’t, why you gotta take it apart? Surely this is– Crevices. This isn’t how everything is done. Crevices, man. Hotdog and beer gets in crevices. Hotdog probably gets into more crevices than beer. And you can’t get it out. So now I’m on this cleaning manufacturing lines thread and I’m all in. I was actually surprised at myself at this point that I was so interested in this and I will keep reading. Okay. I have an industrial engineering degree. It’s basically a degree that teaches you not how to make things, not how… Not to design things but to design how the things are made. Mm-hmm. So it’s the designing and manufacturing process. Right. Once the thing that you know you wanna create has already been designed. Well what’s the most efficient or clean or safe or all of the above way to actually get that thing made? Get that beer canned. One of my favorite classes was, there was a manufacturing processes class and we would just go and take tours of factories. Well yeah tours, I guess it’s a field trip class. Yeah field trip class. Yeah. So you got the hotdog manufacturer talking about deconstructing, soaping up, scrubbing, rinsing, re-assembling the machines at the end of every shift and then someone commented, and people say automation will take jobs away. And then, funky credo comes in and says, it already did. The company I worked for was in Ukraine. Due to cheap labor costs, the level of automation is low since it’s not cost effective. Our facility made four tons an hour of hotdogs using multiple manufacturing lines and close to 100 people per shift directly on those lines. I toured a number of facilities in the U.S., most are so automated that a single line makes eight tons an hour which is twice as much with only eight people directly involved as opposed to 100. And then someone commented I bet those eight people got a ton of, to clean and it probably doesn’t all get done. No. I used to work in a pastry facility doing sanitation. Yes, now we’re, we’re going from beer to hotdog to pastry. People working in factories– Riveting. Coming out of the woodwork and I am here for it! I noticed that. Pretty much everything can be power washed in most facilities, making it incredibly easy to clean. See this is the question you had. Why do they have to take stuff apart? Really, do you really need to do that? Plus, we had to pass cleanliness inspections every morning which involved multiple cotton swap tests on every machine for food bacteria. We cleaned the entire facility– Facili-lilidly. Facility. This is a industrial engineer here. We cleaned the entire facility with three people versus the 15 that worked the line. Needless to say, I’d far trust U.S. cleaning since it is typically all designed to be cleaned and multiple tests are run before the facility can even open. Yeah ’cause the moment that you get bacteria on the equipment and it’s transferred to the food, you basically are completely shut down. Your livelihood is gone so– Right. All the incentives are to maintain very high standards. And another commenter comes in and talks about how in other facilities that the machines do start to clean themselves. But there’s still rigorous swabbing that’s happening. Right. I think I would do good in a place that involved rigorous swabbing but I would still be very anxious. You’d probably never find anything on your swab. But even the rigorous swabbing can easily be, well not easily, will eventually be automated. I mean, all steps can be automated. The rigorous swabbing, rigorous swabbing will be automated. Right, it could be automated. Right. And robots probably gonna be better at evaluating the swab to some dude named Bill. And then trephination by 45 swoops in and expands the convo. Uh-oh. There’s an interesting albeit slightly esoteric argument for automation that suggests that once we as a species get through the initial bumps of steadily implementing it more and more that humans will thus be able to concentrate their lives more on their truly passionate pursuits due to the vast elimination of boring, tedious tasks. That once we’re free of manually having to quote, waste our lives, performing the various tasks out of necessity, we’d have the opportunity to become more in touch with our humanity and spend our time pursuing the things that we truly love and that a majority of previous jobs that related to performing such boring work would translate towards less intensive automation supervision or orchestration, et cetera. Obviously there’s much much more nuance to that sort of cultural development but it does strike me as an interesting and somewhat counter-intuitive notion, don’t you think? I think that there’s a lot of assumptions about human behavior built into that. Yeah yeah. Haven’t you seen WALL-E? There is an assumption that we, once we’re freed up, people will instinctively concentrate their lives more on their truly passionate pursuits. Some people will. Yeah in WALL-E, as I call it, if memory serves me, I don’t remember much of the plot. Well if memory serves you correct. Much of the dialogue. It could serve you incorrectly. It could mis, it could disserve. Yeah. There’s a bunch of unhealthy people just slobbin’ around– Watching television. In hover recliners watching screens. Right. Robots doing everything. Which I mean– On spaceships– We have– Leaving the planet because it has been destroyed. We do have some data on this, right? There are people who don’t work for whatever reason, I’m not talking about people who want to work and can’t but people who are choosing not to work, they might be retired. I guess the retired community is an example. So you’ve got people who are inactive and watch television, eat and watch television and become the types of people that are featured in WALL-E and then you have another set of the population that chooses to do activities, what might be referred to as active leisure. Mm-hmm. Some things are more active than others. So you’re using the retirement thing as an analogous to, well, if your job was taken away and then you had to find a new job, but you would have to find one, you would have the opportunity to find one that you were more engaged in. Well– Than something that was more monotonous that a robot could do it. And I like to extrapolate things out to just the logical conclusion, right, a lot of people make all kinds of arguments about how automation is actually not going to lead to unemployment and I don’t really wanna get into it, that’s kind of a, I don’t wanna get into that boring conversation. I think that– We could just talk about cleaning manufacturing equipment the whole time if you don’t wanna make sure we’re not boring. Well what I’m saying is I don’t wanna debate whether or not automation is gonna really be a problem for people’s jobs, but I think that it’s kind of unavoidable if we don’t, which I actually think that the chance is that we exterminate ourselves because we’re not dealing with global crises in a way that we should. We’re dividing as opposed to unifying, coming together and solving problems. I think we’ll probably– Preach. I think we will exterminate ourselves before we actually get to this point but let’s just say people wake up and realize that the world is falling apart and dying and we actually need to do something about it. Let’s assume that humans– Well by the way, that is WALL-E, they left Earth. Right. They had to abandon it. Yeah well let’s assume that we wake up and figure it out. Then it is inevitable that technology will progress to a place where we have the option to get the robots to do all the stuff that we don’t want to do. Let’s ignore robot’s rights issues and whether or not they’ll have personhood. That’ll become a debate, it already is, whatever, okay. We’ll let them worry about that. Yeah but it is inevitable that we’ll get to a point where you don’t have to be the person to clean the beer machines or the hotdog machines. Like you could if you want to maybe, but actually you probably won’t even be allowed to because you’ll be way worse at it. And so and even the jobs that we have, like okay, it isn’t that far off that, first of all, there’s already AI that’s making YouTube videos and there’ll be the first completely AI generated movie in however many years and people will go, eventually, the stuff created by the robots and this may take several generations, many generations, but eventually the robots will be able to create better than us. And you will enjoy a movie created by robots from top to bottom more than the one made by humans. Right? Everything will be eventually replaced. The robots will be able to do it better eventually. I just– Then what are we gonna do? I can’t believe that a purely creative endeavor, when subject to so much, so much sensibility– No I’m saying– Could ever be– This is way, way, way, way, way far in the future because replicating the human mind and human intuition. I mean did you see the thing where, this could be, I don’t know if this is just one of those internet things that’s not true but you know the picture of the chihuahuas and the blueberry muffins in the grid? Oh yeah. And somebody sent that to, I think a text thread that we’re on and they were like– I think Jessie sent it. AI is not able to tell the difference between the blueberry muffins and the chihuahuas. Now if I squinted, I couldn’t either. Right but as a human you can look at it and within about half a second you can determine which one’s a chihuahua and which one’s a blueberry muffin. Apparently AI still can’t do that, right. But they will be able to do that if they can’t already if that’s just a meme that isn’t true. What I don’t understand is why robots can’t push the button that says I am not a robot on websites. Now that seems pretty simple. You should be there, robot. Really good point. That’s an opportunity. It literally says I am not a robot and then just one button that just check, it’s like a check box. So I’m pretty much, I’m eroding your entire argument with that. They can’t check the box, man. But they will. I’m just saying that there’s gonna be all kinds of ups and downs, all kinds of arguments, ethical conundrums leading to a place, but eventually technology inevitably, if you don’t exterminate yourself, it progresses to a place where something you create surpasses anything that you are. I just think that that’s inevitable. So there will be– And cool. There will be a point in which you’re like, I don’t have to contribute, essentially, to society. I mean the thread goes on to universal basic income. Which, you know, I don’t really have the appetite to go there except to say that, well, some people will say well if that exists, then I actually don’t know but I presume that there’s then an argument on one side that’s like, well you know, then it gives people a padding that then they’re not gonna do anything. You’ve got the low level, you’ve got the base level income that you need to thrive, so it really comes back to, and we can make this about us but, what do you do if you have free time? I mean if you have to find a job and there’s no financial cushion there, then hopefully we’re creating enough jobs where everybody can get one. It just doesn’t make sense to me that everybody will automatically be able to then move to what they’re most passionate about but I also don’t know that most people, if they are financially secure enough, I think there’s some people who then go wild with their passions and there’s some people who just go lazy. Yeah, it’s very personality dependent. Yeah and I actually feel, I feel like my natural instinct is toward the entropy of just laziness, just falling apart. I don’t think, no, I don’t think so. I think you get very frustrated with yourself if you actually did that with your time. But I’m reading a book right now– I would become depressed. Yeah. But I think I would have to push through that. I think I’d have to go through– I think you would. I think I would have to go through that valley. I’m reading a book right now that I’m not gonna say what it is because it might be a rec once I get through and decide that it’s a rec and by rec, a Rec in Effect at the end of the show. Just say what– No. You can give it again. No, no. You don’t know if it’s good? Yeah ’cause I feel like it might be a strong recommendation but I’m only like a third through it but one of the principles that is being discussed in the book is essentially where people, you have this idea that okay, well what I’m going to do when I get old and I’ve done my work and it’s time to retire is I’m going to be as my Instagram, shout-out to @rhettmc on Instagram. As my Instagram bio says, future international man of leisure. Right, and it’s a joke that I just came up with. It’s kind of a non-joke. It’s a playful description. I think, it will turn some people against you. Yeah and as a result of this conversation, and as a result of this book I’m reading, I actually think I’m going to change that. Yeah, I definitely hate you because of it. Now but so– Why? The implication is that, okay, when I have free time, I’m going to be a man of, and I would say active leisure, travel, experiencing things or whatever. Kitesurfer. I don’t think I’m gonna go there. Now– Shoulders. The argument that this guy makes in the book is that people who live lives of purpose and have true joy are those who, actually, as they get older, they actually increase their commitments to other people. It might be a commitment to a cause or a commitment to a community or an organization or an individual, but essentially, that people who are the most satisfied and the most purpose-oriented are the people who have commitments. I gotta be there for something or for somebody. Six nights in a row. And that’s not what my six nights in a row had been about but you know what I’m saying. Yeah. And that kinda struck me, I was like first of all, this isn’t fundamentally, goes against anything that I already believe or think or want for my life, but it made me think differently about that little quip in my Instagram bio because I do like to think about, hey we’re gonna travel and we’re gonna do this and he’s like everyone thinks that that’s what they want to do but that life gets pretty empty pretty quickly and so I think that the real question, the ethical question when people have this free time, ’cause we’re just, we’re talking in the, we’re assuming that people are gonna have the option to be like, okay, I get my universal basic income and now I can play video games, I can get lost in VR which that’s gonna be a huge cultural problem as people getting just basically living their lives online. And then other people will just binge-watch them VRing their lives. Right, but the… I think the people who are gonna be truly happy, like you’re talking about fighting through this depression, right, okay, if you commit yourself to just personal pursuits, I’m gonna go do what I want to do whether that’s watch TV or go kitesurfing, it could be active. I do think that eventually you’re gonna be like, I kinda just, there’s not a lot here. This isn’t what– Why am I here? Humans are not– Why am I even still here? Yeah and so the principle in this book is that we think we’re all about independence but really we’re built for interdependence and so I think that there’s this idea that listen, we evolved in community and you go back just a very, very short period of time to where we were living in these communities of 100 to 150 individuals that all had a role and you were contributing to each other’s lives, you were involved in each other’s lives emotionally, physically, and you were helping raise children and that kinda thing– And when you got old, you were valued for your perspective. Yeah. Your wisdom. And so I think that again, if we don’t exterminate ourselves, we get to this point where the robots are doing all the work, the only way we will survive as a species is if we somehow replicate this community that exists for our own health. You know what I’m saying, we will come up with roles– Absolutely. And interactions and relationships for our own personal well-being that may not even be, they’re not contributing to the GDP, ’cause the robots are doing all that. This just becomes about just well-being amongst people. First of all, ton of people. That’s something to pay for. Billions of people. You can make a living doing that. More people than the world can probably support but– It doesn’t have to be charity, there’s occupations associated with this and more can be invented. This is exactly what I was getting at when I was like aspirationally I want to be the type of person that takes life by the horns. We don’t, my Nanny Lucille, my mom’s mom, she worked her entire life in a shirt factory. Right. And my Aunt Vicky right beside her. Aunt Vicky was a folder I believe and Nanny was an inspector. The little sticker you get with a number– With name on that. Well the number was– Inspected by Lucille. Lucille was number, I don’t know maybe she was number nine. She’s number one to me. But that’s accountability in the factory. That’s why they put the sticker there. It’s not for anybody else, just if something screwed up, then Nanny gets a demerit. But I mean, it’s that red cap factory on the far side of Lillington across from Bird’s Drive-In, that trailer where they had the amazing burgers. Yeah. And now it’s, there’s just a Burger King over there and it sucks. Every day of her life, I mean, I’ll need to ask her how many years but like– She did it longer than Vicky right, or maybe they stopped– Well she retired. ‘Cause Vicky went to work at the school. Well yeah. But her entire working life she worked in one shirt factory the entire time, man. Right. I mean it’s like, we have this amazing job where we’re so creatively fulfilled and every day’s different. Our calendar’s filled up and we’re told where we have to be and what we have to do and we have to fill all these slots and we get grumpy but we have, we are doing our passions, like– Oh yeah. There’s few people on the planet that the percentage of their time is dedicated as highly as ours is to our passions. Yeah. And maybe that’s a factor but for me, but I think it’s more still a personality type that there’s probably both that okay, if I had time I would just like veg out. And maybe that’s because I’m so fulfilled and maybe the average person who isn’t would more likely pursue that than not but I wanna be the type of person that as I continue to gain space in my life to make decisions with what I wanna do that it’s things that are healthy but also meaningful and beyond myself. You can save the rec but just tell me the name of the book. I feel like I’d like the maybe read this book. It’s called “The Second Mountain”. “The Second Mountain”, okay. Yeah so I’m interested in that, ’cause I don’t know that I’m that type of person. Even this weekend, I’m going camping with the kids but it’s because our friend Nick said, “Hey, “I’m going camping with my kids. “Do you wanna come?” And I was like, they’re probably not gonna wanna come and then I asked the kids and they wanted to go and I’m like yes, ’cause I didn’t wanna take them, I didn’t wanna force. Yeah. I was so happy. There was a tinge of self-judgment that I wouldn’t have gone camping unless I was invited. I had the time and my family has the appetite, but it would have, but I didn’t take the initiative to do it and I wanna be the type of person that’s like, continues to not just sit on my butt. I don’t– Maybe I’m too hard on myself. I think you’re being too hard on yourself because I think that– Climb that second mountain. Literally. Like when your wife texted me and my wife a picture of you lounging next to your pool this past Saturday and she said, this is post nude swim Link, and you just had a towel. You were asleep and you had a towel draped over your nether regions and she was like still nude by the way. I didn’t judge you, man. You know what I thought to myself, man I should take a nude swim right now. I should be in my pool naked and then lounging next to it. That’s what I thought. Sometimes a man needs to swim naked, man. Yeah and you can zoom in on me, look. Look at how– You look so contented. Look how content I am here. Don’t worry Kiko, I’m taking a screenshot for ya so you can see my contented naked body lounging by my pool and share it with the people. ‘Cause I’m passionate about it! Again ’cause I think that– I don’t feel bad about that. I think that so much of what makes us happy is trying to find a way to interact with the modern world in a way that is sort of in symphony with our actual biology. You know what I’m saying and that’s just a, I talk about this and you’re tired of it and you don’t wanna hear me talk about it again when I say it all the time about Stone Age hardware and modern age software and those are kinda, the source of so many of our problems. But I just feel that way and so like, what you’re doing when you lay next to your pool after you’ve had, we work hard. Yeah we have a great job. It’s not a hard labor job, my hands are soft. You know what I’m saying. The tips of my fingers, the tips of my left hand fingers are pretty callous because I play the guitar but my hands are soft. I used to shake hands with my Uncle Jake who was a pipe welder and that dude, it was just like going into the sandpaper section of the Home Depot and just brushing up against it. His hands, it was something other than human skin. It was like boulders wrapped in sandpaper. Yeah. Wrapped around your hands. It was just like touching a man wearing a glove and then you’re oh he doesn’t have a glove on. His hand has become a glove. And that man worked hard, lived hard, died young. We don’t live that kind of life. Well he shouldn’t have stared right into the welding part. I don’t think that’s what it was. He took the appropriate safety measures I believe. Well he didn’t wear gloves. We have a pretty, we get to do, like you said, privilege out the wazoo, we get to do what we want. We make our own schedules but we have committed ourselves thoroughly to these aspirations and these dreams on this probably delusional level and we end up spending a lot of time on it so when I get home at night or on the weekends, I am exhausted because emotional exertion is a real thing. We’re putting our hearts, souls into what we’re doing and performing and creating and it is exhausting and it does have a physical toll. So I don’t, you shouldn’t feel bad about that. I think what we’re really talking about– Okay I don’t anymore. I think what we’re really talking about is when, when we don’t have those obligations. ‘Cause I kinda feel like I know what I would do if all of a sudden, everything was good. Everything was taken care of, all the people that I love are taken care of and you know, I could just step away from everything that we built and just like, I can do anything that I want. What I would most likely do, my first inclination is to just fill my time with other creative endeavors but things that don’t necessarily have to be a commercial success, right? And maybe things that wouldn’t even be enjoyed by lots of people, it might just be like oh, I’m gonna create in this particular way, write, or paint or whatever or I’ve got this passion project and I wanna do it. And I think that even that would become kinda unfulfilling at some point, right? Because unless I was able to direct those passions and what I can do creatively into greater good to support something or support someone, I think eventually those things wouldn’t be very fulfilling. Right now I think the thing that keeps us going and keeps us so busy is again, and I do think it’s slightly delusional and that’s probably a good thing is we just have this idea that oh the next thing that we’re gonna create is the best thing we’ve ever created and we’re gonna find some way to get somebody to help us make it. And we have this sort of rolling list of things that we feel like we have to do. But eventually we’re gonna get to the end of, one of two things is gonna happen. We’re gonna do the things on that list and then realize that they’re really not any different from a personal satisfaction point than anything we’ve ever created and there’s no real joy and happiness there. B, probably ore likely, we’re gonna get older before, we’re gonna lose the ability to do that before we’re able to do it. I mean that might be a pessimistic viewpoint, but it’s just like, my greatest fear is that our best work is behind us but I’m also sort of like using historical data to come to that conclusion that typically, you’re moving into your 40s. It’s not like you’re, I hope, I still believe that our best work is ahead of us, but anyway, at some point we’re gonna get to a place where we have either done it or weren’t able to do it and now we gotta make a decision about what is life gonna be? That’s the more pressing question for me personally because I feel like we’re gonna answering that question for ourselves in a way that maybe the society as a whole is gonna be answering that question in the distant future because we’ve got privilege to do it. I feel like you need to ask yourself that question much less but the average person might need to ask themselves the question much more. Like how do I engage my passion for the, and then dot dot dot, eventually for the greater good. Let me continue with a thread here. ‘Cause with every tangent, there is a re-centering. So after that, let’s see, oh this one guy shared this anecdote which I’ll quickly share. I worked as a controls engineer at a factory that made sports drinks for a few years. Beer, wieners, pastries, sports drinks. This is my passion. I’m gonna go back to industrial engineering. I think that’s what I’m learning. The factory was originally built in the ’70s and had been constantly upgraded. It was eerie because you’d be in a million square foot factory plus warehouse that ran 24/7, producing over two million cases of drinks per month and there’d be 20 to 40 people on duty per shift. So you could be on the factory floor and potentially not see another human being for hours. That’s crazy. I would love to go into a facility like that. The break room and parking lot were all sized for hundreds of people so everyone would be on lunch break and it’d only be a small corner of the room with people in it. It always felt a little bit eerie. So when they built this plant, there was more people in the process. Yeah but back in the ’70s. Yeah. Million square foot facility. So now there’s like 20 to 40 people. Anyway automation had eliminated hundreds of jobs over the decades and continue to eliminate the remaining ones including maintenance technicians and housekeeping staff as machines got more reliable or came with more capabilities. But and at this point I started to think, man, this would be cool in a movie. This is a cool setting for a movie. It’s not even in the future, this is now. So we don’t have to make a scifi film to do this but I’m just planting a seed here that like huge factory with 20 people working in it. Hmm. Let’s find a factory and let’s write a whole movie in a cavernous factory where you only see people once a day and then you go to the break room and they’re all huddled in the corner eating, starved for connection. That’s eerie, man. That’s cool. I like it. Yeah, so that’s a movie idea that I got. And then we come to it. There’s more stuff under people talking about that guy’s post but then I keep scrolling, I’m about to fall asleep at this point. Boy I’ve been in the canning process, I’ve been power washing equipment. I’ve been thinking about my future and engaging my passions and the future of society. I’ve been thinking about a movie idea and right before I shut my little phone and shut my little eyes, I read it. Somebody comments, that was my nickname in middle school. And if you scroll all the way back up to the top, you’ll remember that the second comment was sticky, smelly mess. Ah. Which someone said that was my nickname in middle school. Middle school, okay, that’s interesting. First comment underneath that. Rhett, question mark. And then other people are commenting about it. Of course you say, that was my nickname in high school– High school. On GMM a lot, and I was bolted, I almost sat up on my bed. All of a sudden I was like totally awake again. Yeah. I was like, I’m– I know him! I’m deep, I know him! Yeah, I’m deep in this Reddit thread that has nothing to do with me, you or us, and all of a sudden, there you are. Someone who knew you and that dumb catchphrase. Mm. Felt the need to associated themselves– I think it’s a pretty good, it’s kinda like what she said. That’s what she said, it kinda always works. It’s exactly like that except for the fact that if you said that’s what she said on our show a lot and people thought that you came up with it. That’s the thing I find funny is that you didn’t come up with– I don’t think I came up with it. That was my nickname in high school and you have not claimed to do that but there are people in the world and there are people on this Reddit thread apparently who so associate it with you that I think they may believe that you came up with the catchphrase. I think I convinced myself that I came up with it. Memory, you can control that kinda thing. Well this person got it wrong, you say high school. But middle school, sticky and smelly mess. I don’t know it is a little bit more of a middle school thing. Look it, right there, question mark, Rhett. Rhett? But that didn’t get much traction. Didn’t get any traction. No no. It got two up-votes. Okay. I appreciate that. It’s time to give a Rec in Effect as we wrap down this episode. Check baby check. I guess it’s my turn to give a rec. Yeah. You know what, I didn’t come very prepared today. I would like to highly recommend a book called “Second Mountain”. Come on, man. I haven’t started reading it yet but Rhett was telling me about it and you– I’m only a third into it. I don’t like– Rhett’s only a third into it but from what he tells me– I don’t like to recommend things that I haven’t finished. You’re not recommending it. I’m recommending it. Ha! But you can’t steal my recommendation, man. Well I’m stealing it. I’m stealing it. “Second Mountain” by– I’m not gonna tell it, I’m not gonna say who it’s by. Rupert Monday. I don’t know, come on man, I gotta give the– Is this really your rec? Yes. You don’t have another rec? David Brooks, man. David Brooks. “Second Mountain”. I think it’s called “The Second Mountain”. I also recommend “Second Act”, a 2018 American romantic comedy film directed by Peter Segal and written by Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas. ‘Cause that came up when you did a Google search for second. Yes, #EarBiscuits, let us know what you think about automation, the future of society, following your passions and somehow, I don’t normally do this but I just wanna encourage you. Take a moment, even if it’s just a moment today to engage in a personal passion. Don’t wait. And definitely stop before you become a sticky and sweaty mess. Was it sticky and smelly mess? Oi. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your Mythical best.