72. You Aren't in Trouble

AlexHello.

Speaker AHello.

AlexHey! All right, we'll do it live. What? This is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, make a soundboard.

MerlinHi, Mr. Temkin. Oh, hi, Merlin. they want to ruin Robert Mueller to blast their pussy oh Merlin that's not appropriate

Alexand I can't even out it down you're starting right off oh my god

Speaker Agood morning this is already our

Maxthis is already our best episode that's so good this is stupid

Speaker Ayou're gonna be so confused hey welcome to the live show uh this is pretty good

MaxAlex what did you did you like this did you like this challenge thanks Mr. Temkin oh you're very you're welcome

Speaker Ano stop you can't I hate this challenge I hate it so much oh Alex that's so negative that's so negative What are you doing?

MaxCan you turn Hey Chris, it's my weekly It's my weekly request to turn Merlin up in the headphone mix Just in the headphones It's the perils of doing it live Oh, I miss you guys I feel like it's been a while since all three of us You know, recorded the podcast that we do every week It's been a while

MerlinYou had Mr. Sandwich last week and he did a great job It was a good episode

MaxI should call him more Can you say why you were not on the episode last week? I could.

AlexYou weren't there because you weren't there.

MaxWhat was that? Alex, do you think Merlin should share with our listeners where he was last week?

AlexYes, yes, yes. Let's do research. Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker AWhat are you doing? What are you doing?

AlexNo one's going to know what's happening.

Speaker AIt's not going to make any sense. What does this even mean? Hopkins. Am I hacked?

This is so stupid This is really stupid you guys

MaxI showed my So I made my soundboard And I showed it to Veronica last night And I was like look Veronica I can make Merlin and Alex laugh At anything I say Like, why don't they make the whole plane out of the black box? You should be paying 10 bucks.

Or if I do a bad joke, I can make you guys fake laugh. Like, oh, why do you drive in the parkway, but you park in the driveway.

The first one is like a real laugh from something funny that happened. And then the second one is like a fake laugh that everyone does when we're tired at the end of the episode.

AlexThis is really.

MaxYes, that was very humorous.

AlexIs there an audio like what? Is there an audio term for Uncanny Valley or is it still Uncanny Valley? Oh, because I can't like there's my brain. OK, my brain's broken. Max is tired and I was really excited for this episode. But now I'm just like, ah, it's because I have it. I wonder if Max has a Tina Belcher groan, and I have a Tina Belcher groan in my soundboard, but I also make a Tina Belcher groan, and people aren't going to know what it is.

MaxIt's so confusing. What kind of Tina Belcher groan would that be? Oh, wait, did I not do that?

AlexYeah, well then.

MaxWait, is this it? Look how big the racket is. Look how big it is. That's a little surprise for later. So I took some of Merlin's, and I slowed them down by 50%, so he sounds drunk, and they're very funny.

MerlinThis is fucking bullshit This is bullshit This is such bullshit I guess we should probably get a lot of Cart-Bike and Wall material What's the challenge for this week, you guys?

MaxWell, the challenge this week was to use The new Rogue Amoeba app Farago To create a soundboard to share with your co-hosts On Dubai Friday

Speaker AWhat did you think of this challenge Alex? I hate this challenge I hate it so much Why do you hate it?

MerlinBecause you had to listen to your voice Can I still have a handjob?

MaxMerlin Merlin Was this the challenge you wanted to do?

MerlinCan I still have a handjob?

MaxNo Merlin That wasn't the challenge

AlexI don't need to be here

Speaker AThis is really stupid This is a terrible idea

AlexOh I forgot this is something we do

MaxJacob, Jacob, Jacob, follow up. Merlin, do you want to explain the Kurt Eichenwald drama that happened this week? Because it's very funny.

MerlinI'm turning to you for this. Oh, Jesus Christ.

MaxI had to go to Wikipedia.

MerlinI want you to do an explainer on Kurt Eichenwald. I think it's time.

MaxI don't want to be mean. No. You might give him a seizure. We set up this Dubai Friday Discord server, which I guess, well, where do people find that? We'll find the link in the show notes to join the Discord server.

MerlinWhat are you eating, Max?

MaxNo, I'm not eating anything.

MerlinOkay.

MaxI just went and got a little – We got a lot to talk about. But I didn't – I woke up – I got up at like – I woke up way too early. And then I was like, I'll go back to sleep for a half hour. And then – so I woke up at like 7. And then I was like, I'll go back to sleep for a half hour and wake up at like 7.30 or 8. And then the next thing I knew, it was like 10, 15 a.m. And I had to scramble to like get ready and get all my shit together and come in for the podcast. You had stressful bonus sleep.

AlexI hate the stressful bonus sleep.

MaxSo my brain feels like overinflated. It feels like it's like taught. and I haven't had time to eat or have coffee or nothing, and there were just a bunch of kids running around the coffee shop. It's like it says it must be spring break.

AlexYeah.

MaxAnd it was a total fucking disaster in the coffee shop, and I was in a bad mood, so I listened to – instead of having coffee, I listened to Dry the Rain by the Beta Band like three times in the car.

MerlinOh, nice.

MaxThat's a mellow song. And I thought maybe that would do it, you know, give me a little positive energy. But I really do need to eat this food and drink this coffee.

MerlinAnyway, we're pretty deep in the stack here, but are you tired because you were up late doing conference things? Why are you tired? Conference things.

AlexNo, no, no. That's why I'm tired.

MerlinYou guys talk about all this stuff that you're doing. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I don't know where you are. I don't know why you do these things, but you're always talking about things that you're doing and signs that you're buying. You're always doing things. I don't know what you actually do. So I'm asking, were you up late last night? Were you doing a talk? What happened?

MaxWhat was I doing last night? Well, I've been watching the documentary. I think I can't remember what it's called like wild wild west or what it was Wild Wild Country Wild Wild Country yes that's a hell of a thing yeah we got to get into that at some point because I do have this idea that like so we've got this discord going right mm-hmm we've got the whole Dubai Friday sort of fan community and and they're they're in there I don't know what they're doing they're talking about other podcasts or something but didn't make me think like you know we we've been you know pretty forward-thinking with this sort of business

model of the podcast and you know the offering that we make to our audience and you know i was thinking like what if we did get some land in like in oregon and we were like hey guys you could for the low low price of giving up your lives giving us all your savings i mean some people

Merlinare already you could come yeah we'll provide a wardrobe that you pay for at a store we could take 40 people i mean you know what i mean we could take a town we could we could take them

MaxBecause because here's the thing is that it kind of it's kind of you know, it's like it's like you get two dogs They walk themselves. It's like they're gonna build their own houses You gotta two kids to hit each other now Here's what I'm thinking is that now here's what I'm thinking is like they'll come to why do they come? Okay? Why do they come it's because they can sit at my feet and meditate?

They're gonna burst into tears every time they see you and I stop talking for a while Because they'll know that when I gaze upon them there's kindness in my eyes and and alex can be my sort of alex can be my sort of murderous secretary oh my god alex you

Merlincould be you could be the seal in this and he's always touching your forehead and you're crying

Maxwhile you sit at his feet but i'm thinking alex is kind of the secretary who does all the work yeah that's the sealer yeah oh yeah right exactly and she actually is wearing the kind of checkered the sort of orange checkered shirt that is part of the uniform today and merlin i'm thinking you

Merlincould be on public bathroom duty oh i would start on public bathroom duty me and roger come all the way from australia i'm thinking i want to become like that lawyer who has the peace pipe on his

Maxwall i want to become like that guy i want to get a beard why why why is that i feel like every cult documentary i watch has some some poor woman who's like scrubbing the barnacles off l ron hubbard's cruise ship or cleaning cleaning the zinyasin you know porta potties what's up with that

Alexuh it's almost like they're targeting vulnerable women who will do anything i don't know serious question if we were to have a cult what would the uniform be because i have very strong

Merlinopinions oh well i think it's pretty clear they need to dress like you two dress you two already

Maxdress like each other it would be like a pair of it would be like a pair of like blue jeans Here's the thing with blue jeans, too, for our cult. You got to buy them new. Don't buy that pre-distressed. Oh, no. Nonsense. You buy them new, you earn that.

MerlinThat's what's the deal with cutting up your knees on new jeans. I don't like that at all. And you get a checked shirt like Alex has. You roll up your sleeves a little bit like in all her videos. It makes you look tough.

MaxThis is awesome. Is it rolled? Oh, it is rolled up a little bit. Oh, my God. It is.

MerlinNo, Alex has got. I've seen all her videos. I saw her. Oh, she's getting real worried about a sticker on her keyboard. Put that on the internet.

MaxWait, what? I didn't put that on the internet. Alex has an excellent sleeve roll. It's not one of these weird, you know, I can't think of any. What's the apple guy with the white hair who rolls his sleeve? Craig Federici. It's not a Craig Federici roll where he sort of lazily does the sleeve, just the wrist and, like, flops it over like one. It's like a flop scrunch. No flop scrunch. Alex has got a tight roll. You could put a pack of cigarettes in there. You could open an envelope on those things.

MerlinThat's the look you're going for. But, you know, also I have problems with clashing reds. I mean, it's very troubling to me that they have combinations of, like, burgundy and orange. And, like, oh, we just want something roughly from this color group and the pants don't need to match while you're walking around Oregon. I don't like that at all. I think we need something much more rigid. I would like a Mack Weldon shirt for my role as an attorney.

MaxWell, you don't need to wash that. It's got the silver threads baked right into it.

MerlinThat's the undergarments. It's a better way to dress.

AlexI think it's a poly cotton blend with silver underpants and then non-distressed jeans. Because for some reason you sound upset about that like it's 1998. Have you ever seen a youth wearing distressed jeans? It's not a thing anymore.

MerlinWell, no. What I'm talking about is everybody's seen it. I got holes in my pants because I've been wearing these for six years. Everybody's got holes in their knees now. And I think lasers cut it now. You don't notice this. Do you guys not get this in Chicago, the knees that are open? Audrey's pants are all cut up

Maxwell it's cold here yeah we have a cold climate so I think you see less of it but you do see that in the summer

MerlinI mean what it comes down to Max is I think part of the mission statement from the beginning has been we want to get popular is the wrong word we want to get we want to get people vulnerable people who are willing to eventually kill for us even if they don't know that right now isn't that kind of the idea well that's the logical end game here right and don't spoil it I'm only up two and a half episodes in And Dan says it gets a lot weirder.

MaxOh, yeah.

MerlinHow far in are you?

MaxWell, I think we're all two episodes in. That's exactly where I am.

MerlinI'm at the point. I'm still at the point. I've fallen back to a series of unfortunate events, which is so good. But yet I'm at the point where they're arming themselves. They're arming themselves and shooting at targets.

MaxI feel that this is an outstanding documentary so far. And what I like about it is that I love a story where it can genuinely make you see vastly between both sides of it. And I feel like especially in the second episode, there are moments where you're watching and you're like, man, these people are really ambitious and industrious and they're kind of getting it done.

MerlinRight, right, right. When they show the footage of like the engineers drawing and stuff and you're like, wow, this is – they really – they knew what they were doing here.

MaxYeah. And, you know, they're saying a lot of things that I think about a lot, right? They're like, okay, we're like doing a sustainable community and we're going to grow all our own food and we're going to build a utopian world. And there is a real sense of optimism. I mean, yeah, there's a lot that is weird about it. Yeah, I totally agree. And then you cut that with the townspeople talking about how they were – they hated them so much. And you do really start to see these guys as the underdog and you're like, man, these guys rule. But I don't know if you – did anyone – do you guys know the story of this or is this the first year?

No, no. I won't say anything about it then.

MerlinOkay, I've been deliberately, I stayed off Wikipedia. I've been deliberately avoiding it. We talked about this a little while I'm back to work because Dan's the one who suggested it to me. But, yeah. Now, Dan could be a good zinyasin.

MaxI could really see him taking the whole family out there.

MerlinDon't you feel like it would sort of a puzzle piece clicking into place? Like, yeah, that would work. Absolutely. I don't know how I feel about cleaning a toilet. That doesn't seem like it's good.

MaxNow, let me tell you what they don't have on that zinyasin compound. No blue light bulbs. Oh. There's a code.

AlexI mean there's probably not wifi either So that'll help him out Is that not a thing? Doesn't he not like wifi?

MerlinOh I think his lady doesn't like wifi

AlexMy lady Finally doesn't like the lights Because I broke Have you done this Where you duplicate room settings And then it thinks that your kitchen Is your living room and then your living room is your kitchen What'd you do that in? I have my big Siri ball, and it's like the...

MerlinIt was HomeKit. In HomeKit, you did this.

AlexYeah, the air wires were crossed between whatever the Hue stuff is, and then the HomePods.

MerlinOh, I screwed myself up real good.

AlexI broke my HomePods.

MerlinThere are many items called bedroom.

AlexYes, yes, it's all broken.

MaxWhat do you want me to change? Mine lists my bedroom HomePod as like, it's like bedroom, parentheses, bedroom, parentheses, HomePod. And then it's got like triple parentheses like it's Jewish. And then it's got the number four.

Speaker AAh, no.

AlexYou know, I apologize because that was a Max joke, and so he should have gotten a drum roll, but instead he got piano. I'm very sorry. Live.

MerlinAll right, Kurt, I can mold. I'll show my daughter how I can do this to be like an NPR host, where you go like. Hello, my name is Robert Siegel. This is All Things Considered. And then you can have it fade out.

MaxOh, is that the default Farago?

MerlinIs that the default, the Farago, like, presets? Farago's got, when you got the inspector open, you can tell it to fade out, which is really cool.

AlexYes, I love this. Okay, I, I, can we?

MaxIt's a good-ass app.

AlexIt really is. I kept thinking, oh, wow, this is pretty much perfect. Like, every time I was like, oh, I wish I had this, or I wish it had this, I was like, oh, it's right there.

MerlinAnd it's so promiscuous about accepting. Every single thing I dropped in here, it had no problem accommodating.

AlexOh, yeah. I did some weird... It had a bunch of different formats,

Merlinand it was fine taking any of them.

AlexAlso, sample set, so good. Man, that...

MaxOh, yeah. All right, Kurt Eichenwald. So, let me... I want to do a little fact check before, because he does have a funny superhero origin story.

He wrote something called The Informant that got turned into a film. Oh, he did. Now, okay, so the first that... most people became aware of Kurt Eichenbach was maybe in the, he's a, he's a writer and reporter and he's a, one of these like sort of a hyperbolic Twitter personalities. And he's got this large head avatar. He's got a big, a big head avatar and he posts sort of like hyperbolic, like not quite Sarah Kenzie or, but, but, but, but very over the top sort of Trump. Like he, he views

himself as like uh you know like like he's obi-wan kenobi and trump is darth maul and the battle of the fates is playing and they're both going at each other with the lightsabers and he has to summon all of his force energy to get darth to just keep darth maul at bay right he imagines it as this very intense duel duel of the minds between the two of them versus am joy anime battle Is that a thing you just made up or no no you know that's real from

Oh, yes, I know right yes yes yes all right so

MerlinThat was so flared out by chopper baseball crank and a.m. Joy had this Twitter battle It sounded like dialogue from an

Speaker AYou will not defeat my fireball.

MaxIt's so fucking funny. I forgot about that.

Speaker AI do not listen to people like you. I pay no attention.

MaxIt sounded, it sounded, they had a, they had a war of the words that sounded like it was ran through translate from Japanese back and forth a few times. Right, right, right. Yeah. Well, so Kurt Eichenwald, now I first became aware of him back in, I believe in 2007, 2008, when he did a sort of expose for Time Magazine about buying child pornography, wherein he bought child pornography.

AlexSpoilers.

MaxAnd it created quite a controversy, because I believe he spent Time Magazine's money on the child pornography. and then he sort of became this somewhat popular anti-Trump personality on Twitter and there's been a couple of funny things with him I mean the first funny thing was that one time he posted like a screenshot of something on his browser but he left the section where you can see the tabs in

and he was looking up like tentacle porn in one of the tabs

Speaker AI mean this is certainly how

Maxyou know one of us is going to go down you know we're going to be taking out my Twitter because we'll accidentally post something in some tab online

Speaker Aoh my god it's Max's balls live photo live photo

Maxyou bitch so he live photoed himself pretty bad and then what he should have said was yeah that's my thing i love looking tentacle porn sorry you know that is what joshua marshall did when he was caught when he posted a tab of him looking at some sort of porn video right yeah or no he posted a porn link on twitter or something and he was like yep sorry guys i was looking at that porn my bad you know shouldn't happen it's poor porny on me and and everyone had a couple of jokes and then they moved on but what kurt said was instead of saying like yep sorry guys

that was the thing i was looking at when i posted that you know should have should have not made that mistake what instead what he said was my family was having an argument about whether tentacle porn existed or not and so i pulled that tab up to prove to them that it did exist so it was purely for much like when he bought the child pornography it was purely for research purposes that's journalism yeah family journalism now i'll i'll say as someone who has lots of weird shit open in their browser for the purposes of comedy writing cards against humanity all the time i

I mean, my browser history is fucking insane when we do these cards writers retreats. Because you're just, I mean, you're really going down some rat holes.

MerlinI mean, in comedy, it's important to be precise. Yeah. No, seriously. If you're going to make a joke about something, make the right joke. Nothing is worse than John Syracuse frequently makes fun of me for not making fun of him right. If you're going to make a joke about something, you need to know, is this a sentai or a hentai or a what?

MaxYou've got to get the right word for it. I mean it is we in this is a running joke in the cards writers room of sometimes you have in one tab You have the Denny's brunch menu open and in the next tab you have all the categories on Pornhub and you're tabbing between them going like How do I how do I execute this?

Speaker AWhich Grand Slam do I mean?

MaxExactly and then sometimes Sometimes you'll go like guys. I just looked at the tabs open on my browser and it was fucking insane right now I could be committed for the tabs that are open right now.

Speaker AYou're okay, man?

MaxIt's not impossible that that's what happened to Kurt Eichenwald. I don't want to say that it's impossible, but that is not, let me just say, like, word of advice to anyone who finds himself in this situation. Don't say that as your excuse. Just own it, right? It sounds so defensive and encourages everyone to make jokes. What you should just say is, yeah, sorry I was cranking my hog to the tentacle porn. You know, that's my bad, guys. Just own it. Like it's embarrassing just just just say that's what happened and like let everyone move on and it worked Listen, it's worked for other people who found themselves in that situation

But that was anyway the technical porn thing was very fucking funny And then there was another incident that that I find more politically fraught Try to I don't want to editorialize

MerlinEpilepsy that's what I'm well known. He's been very public about having epilepsy That's right and has like received an award for being like somebody who you know Does good stuff despite having you know pretty severe epilepsy and he's very public about it and then people were harassing him

MaxYeah, so he basically what happened was someone Sent him a tweet lots of people try well lots of people tweet him Pictures of strobing it's really fucked up as a kind of abuse However, let me just say I just want to give the facts of this. I'm not gonna I don't want to get into a whole thing I mean, let me just state at the top. It is wrong It's wrong to send people who you know have epilepsy to send them strobing lights. Don't do that. It's wrong. Like, I would certainly block you if I saw you doing it. It is just a wrong, evil, bad thing to do that should not be tolerated in polite society.

That being said, the way that Twitter works, you know, so basically what happened was one day Kurt was into some shit, maybe over the tentacle porn. I don't remember. It was around that time. And all of a sudden, he posted a tweet that said, this is Kurt's wife. I'm tweeting on his account. Someone sent him a strobing light, and he clicked on it, and he had a seizure. And I'm here calling you out, and then I'm going to call the ambulance to take him to the hospital or whatever. So it was kind of a somewhat of a, I don't know, the whole narrative was a little suspect.

MerlinA little bit of a you done goofed kind of moment. It was just a little weird. You know, like when the dad starts yelling at the camera about how you done goofed.

Speaker AYou darn goofed.

MerlinThe fuck did I do? The fuck did I do?

MaxThe fuck did I do?

AlexSorry, I needed a loop. Thank you.

MaxAnd then, and the other thing that was pointed out is like, he opened, so some user called like JewOven420 sent him a, sent him like a strobing light. And the thing on Twitter is you do have to click on a movie for it to, or a gif for it to play. Like that is how Twitter works. So, you know, there is an element of like if you know that you have severe epilepsy that can be triggered by a picture of a blinking light and you receive a sort of video from Jew oven for 20, like maybe that's not your, you know, your number one click or you'd ask someone to look at it first or something.

So those were sort of the circumstances. And the reason why I feel that it is I have complicated feelings about this is there's actually a lawsuit. So Kurt Eichenwald actually sued Twitter, and the idea was that he was going to subpoena the identity of the user and then bring like assault charges against them. And I have very – I don't know that I love that precedent. I don't know how I feel about that. I have – at best, I have complicated feelings about what that means for privacy and anonymity online.

So I don't know what's been decided, if there's any sort of like case law been made.

MerlinDigga, digga, digga, digga.

MaxFollow up.

MerlinOn March 17, 2017, a Maryland man was arrested in connection with the incident and charged with cyber stalking.

MaxOkay, well, there you go. So I have mixed feelings about that. And I know everyone is probably going to be mad at me about this because it sounds like I'm condoning bullying and possibly actual assault. But I don't know. I mean, just remember that when you start taking rights away from individuals, you start taking privacy and anonymity away from individuals. it can seem like a good idea in the moment because the people who abuse those rights are usually absolute trash i mean they're the worst elements of society they're nazis and and stalkers and

whatever but then you get president trump in office and it gets turned against it gets turned

Merlinagainst us i realize i sound like a second amendment person when i think this thought out loud which is i don't think a thought i've ever thought out loud i i accept that this this is the same kind of argument that people make on the gun rights side. But what I'm starting to realize this late in life is how often laws exist that are only enforced to screw with people who are not privileged. So that could be something like a speed trap that basically nobody ever

gets caught for. But you might get pulled over for that, right? Because you're a black guy. And I mean, more and more, every time I hear somebody want to lean, and this is actually, this is not with regard to Kurt Eichenwald, but just this larger issue of like what laws we decide to create and enforce. Increasingly, when I think about the kinds of laws that people want to pass, and I think about how that could be abused. I realize this is, it's, I'm late to wokeness on this, but I do really think about that a lot now. It's like, how could this be used against people, you know, who aren't white guys?

AlexWell, whenever I think, when I heard about this story, I'm like, okay, so when Gamergate was happening, like, women weren't calling for, like, men to go to court. They're like, Twitter, like, can you just stop? You know, this guy is posting my personal address online and saying he wants to rape and kill me. Can we just, you know, not have that happen?

MerlinPump the brakes on that a little bit.

AlexYep. And not like, oh, it's tearing me down.

MaxBy the way, that's an absolutely justified and correct remedy. Twitter should use every scrap of data they have on this guy to ban him and his entire network permanently. Just be gone with them.

MerlinWe're still taking our shoes off at TSA. And it's like, boy, you are really pushing a rope with that kind of enforcement policy, knowing what you can do with the existing intel to go way beyond 80-20 on fixing that problem. And in that case, you don't yell at every kid in the class because one kid's acting up. It's nuts. Just isolate the problem person.

MaxThe left, not the left, liberalism is pretty bad at dealing with this kind of thought technology, and it's a constant source of frustration for me. You know, I'll give just one quick example of, like, I am a lifelong ACLU supporter. I became involved with the ACLU and really fell in love with them during the Bush administration because, I don't know if people remember, but in the sort of lead up to the war in Iraq and the extreme sort of patriotic like marshalling that happened in this country,

like there were real, there was actual like military grade suppression of free speech and it became nearly impossible in polite society to say that you don't support the war in 2003. And it drove me insane. And the ACLU was doing very important, necessary and unpopular work to protect the anti-war movement, which has been a billion percent vindicated by history, right? Like every, even most of the Bush people like look back on that and we're like, yeah, it

Speaker Awas a colossal mistake.

MaxWe definitely shouldn't have done that. Everybody but John Bolton.

MerlinYeah.

MaxRight. And like, you know, so it just endeared me to the ACLU for life because nothing, I'm telling you, I'm sure we have a lot of young listeners to this show who weren't around for that. They don't remember that. But I'm telling you, it was so deeply unpopular to say anything against the war in Iraq publicly in 2003. It was in you would have been ostracized from polite society for saying it and I drove people crazy in my school and got in trouble for For being anti-war and I know it sounds insane, but that's what it was like

Merlinwell and at the time there was there was not there was there was a that Every time there's some kind of war gesture that's gonna happen. You make it all about the troops Right, but in this case it was also 9-11 right? That's right. 11 was still fresh in people's minds and they were able to make this big linkage between The feelings that we had about they were able to take the feelings we had the vulnerability and just tragic sadness of what happened at 9-11 And really the feeling of getting caught with our pants down. Let's be honest Yeah, and then pivot that into this idea that like well, you know, it's you know, we're

I'm searching for my keys because the lights better here You know like what really we've got like like nuclear stuff in tubes like really that is that really what's happening? And everybody's like you was considered very counter-revolutionary to say anything against that It sounded it felt like you were saying basically, I heart Osama bin Laden. If you were to say anything about me.

MaxI personally I personally hate the troops was how it was taken.

MerlinBut anyway, I don't really hate the troops. I want them to be hurt.

AlexAll right. That's what it sounded like. This is a somewhat self-indulgent question. But I'm wondering, Merlin, you also grew up in the Midwest. Sorry, OPSEC. But was there a moment where you realized, like, oh, I'm a liberal. I guess I disagree with all of these people who are surrounding me. Because I'm surprised to hear Max say this because you grew up in a very liberal household.

MaxBut it was liberals who sold, who packaged, sold and supported the war in Iraq. Yeah. But all these fucking, all these fucking op-ed, these New York Times, these fucking. Here we go. Here we go. So let's pat the grants. These fucking Draculas who write for the New York Times page on these valiant never Trumpers.

Speaker AHe's still eating.

MaxThese never Trump cucks. They were all packaged up the war in Iraq. And they were like, listen, now I'm a Democrat, but we just have to go get this guy, Saddam Hussein. He's killing Iraqis in the desert. He's worse than Hitler. This is just like World War II. Remember 9-11? And I respect the troops. We fucking nominated John fucking Kerry for president because he was a troop. He was a troop respecter.

Speaker AThank you to our first responders.

All right. Yeah.

MaxI gotta start I gotta start popping I gotta start popping Some things off the stack here Alright War in Iraq Unpopular I became a supporter Of the ACLU And then we had Eight good years And then we had Eight good years Relatively good years Under Obama And the ACLU Become very unpopular On the left Because what does The ACLU do They protect the rights Of the minority opinion To say their opinion Let me just say Let me just specify this Who defend Klansmen They But they protect The rights of the minority From government interference from government interference. Twitter's not the government. I'm not the government. It's from

government interference. The ACLU's position is that the government should not decide what speech people do or do not do. So that means that when a bunch of Nazis want to protest in Charlottesville and the government says you are not allowed to march, the ACLU defends them the same as they would defend any group because that's a belief that we have in America that no matter how bad someone's views are, that they should be able to peacefully say them out loud because that is how you protect minority rights. That is a, you know, at this point, a 200-year-old thought technology in this country that has made this country, it's worked thus far, at least, to have, you know,

a balance of power and a democratic government that is pretty stable from like a world historical point of view. So that's what I like about the ACLU. And the left is very, sorry, the liberals are very bad because as soon as we get any power, we're like, yeah, we should probably start suppressing the minority speech that we don't agree with like you know it's it sucks like the aclu was deeply unpopular with liberals uh in the you know in the during the obama administration and now of course they're cool again because they're fighting trump but you know the fbi

Alexdo you think it's weird because they came out afterwards we're talking about we're

Maxkurt eichenwald kurt eichenwald the twitter oh right right so anyway that's why i don't like the idea that the government can compel websites to give you their identity and bring like assault charges against them for sending a picture online i mean that is that is not a path that i want to go down i came for the epilepsy trolls i said nothing well it that's not a path you want to go down because do you want i mean i mean i mean this i mean this earnestly think about this do you want the trump administration to have the ability to subpoena the the identities of social media users

who say mean things about karma?

MerlinThis is why I don't carry a knife. Because I understand that if I carried a knife and somebody started menacing me, I'd pull out the knife and they'd take it away from me and stab me. And that's what you need to consider. Are you the only person who's going to be able to utilize that weapon that you're encouraging there? Because anytime you create a weapon, you create something that pretty much anybody can use. There's not that many, I mean, what are you going to do? You're going to put a fingerprint sensor on your knife? And in that case, that is a very sharp instrument that you are creating.

AlexThis is why I feel so weird when any government official wins a Nobel Peace Prize, even Obama, like, how did you feel about that matter? Like, you know, I would, like, it felt weird. Was it for the drone strikes or for what?

MaxWhat was it for? Well, this was actually before the drone strikes.

AlexOh, yeah, it was, I think it was for environmentalism.

MaxNo, it was for being elected the first black president of a deeply racist country that was founded on slavery.

AlexHe is in charge of the biggest military in the world. It doesn't matter.

MaxIt was a big deal.

AlexPeople forget.

MerlinIt's probably a lot like the Oscars where sometimes you get a Martin Scorsese situation where he was due.

AlexYeah. And I know that the Nobel Peace Prize is bullshit or whatever. Don't at me. Never mind. I'm done. I'm stopping. Nobel Peace Prize is bullshit, claims Alex Cox.

MaxI mean, the business of governing and running America is dirty. It's dirty. We do a lot of dirty business all around the world. And I think there are some cases where I have my opinions about it. But I concede that it is possible that there's information I don't know and that there are worse alternatives to what we do. And I probably shouldn't spout off without really having some sort of deep expertise or whatever. So I think you acknowledge that if anyone who's in the position of president is going to have to make a lot of tough calls and probably do some dirty business,

that no one runs for president to have to deal with, right?

MerlinThere's not a single president that doesn't have some kind of terrible black mark on the record. Right.

MaxOh, I'm not saying that's not true. Because the country is this huge steaming battleship, and you can't just flip it 180 degrees, right? Like even Trump, who wants nothing more than to subvert American democracy, like even he cannot, you know, Obama had eight years with the smartest, best people of our society. and they were trying to turn this.

MerlinYeah, I mean, we want the person to be Captain America.

MaxAnd like, that's not what the job calls for. Well, I know Obama was, right? He was probably, in my lifetime, he was the best man to hold the office and he had the best team. And they really could not move this. All they wanted to do was move this battleship six degrees to the left and they really could not do it. You know, they compromised, it was compromised every step of the way. And now you've got Trump and he's trying to move it, you know, 10 degrees to the right and he's really struggling to do that. And it just goes to show that it's like, I mean, I don't want to get, It's not like a deep state thing. It's more of just like it's a very complicated instrument,

and it moves very slowly over many generations. And the fuck are we talking about Trump? I don't know. Kurt Eichenwald. And then the new thing.

MerlinWe're a little bit into the first act. Now we introduce philosopher of the right, Ben Shapiro. Oh, my God. Because Kurt Eichenwald wrote to—

MaxNow, wait a minute. Did you guys see— There's one other piece of preface to this. Did you see Kurt Eichenwald go on Tucker Carlson? No. Oh, boy. Let's all look this up. All right. Kurt Eichenwald, Tucker. I'll play it. He went on Tucker Carlson to sort of like, I don't know. Yeah, here it is. He went on Tucker Carlson to sort of, I don't know, to discuss Trump or something like that. And he came out with this file folder pull of papers that he was shaking into the camera. and he looked like a lunatic.

He did not look well.

Speaker BWe're showing you many examples of journalism veering out. You have a real habit of taking care. What are you talking about?

MerlinJournalism?

Speaker BI looked up your bio, and it describes you as a senior writer at Newsweek, which suggests journalism. Do you believe that you're practicing journalism? When did you stop beating your wife? What are you talking about? Well, I'll show you what I'm talking about. I read your Twitter feed, and this is the kind of stuff I'm reading on it. At one point, you asked of conservatives why they hate America. You described Trump as, quote, stupid and lazy. You refer to dumbass Trumpers. You say this to Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, F you.

You say this to Trump voters, go F yourself.

MerlinWell, hold on again.

Speaker BOne of the things I want to make sure of, you have a real habit of taking a lot of things

Merlinout of context.

Speaker BI can read you the tweets. So if you're going to talk about a tweet, let's talk about a tweet. Read me what it says, and we can talk about it. But let's not just sit here and take a couple of words here and there.

MaxNow, if you're talking about the... Tucker Carlson kind of ambushes him, and then he does go a little crazy. Let me see if I can follow. I spent a little while just sort of doing some research on you.

Speaker BWhy don't you answer... This is what I came up with.

MaxHe's now waving around a three-ring binder called Tucker Carlson falsehoods.

Speaker BI can sit here, and I can read them to you one at a time. And we can talk about what you have to say. That's pretty good. Or you can give me an example of what you're talking about. Well, I'll give you a perfect example.

MaxAnyway, he just, he kind of, I don't know. I felt very awkward watching this interview, which does go on for 10 minutes of that. It's rare that Tucker Carlson sounds like the reasonable one. I hate him so much. I mean, I think he might be my least favorite person in the entire right-wing media landscape. More than Hannity?

Speaker Ayeah, because Hannity is such a fucking...

MaxHannity's kind of a clown. Hannity's a fucking gorilla, right? I understand he's a big alpha male, and he goes out there and pounds his fist on the desk, but Tucker Carlson, he's got that fucking smirk on his face. It's all a joke to him. It's all a game, right? I hate it.

AlexDo you think he's like the new Glenn Beck? Because he was... I mean, Glenn Beck was the clown of clowns, but people latched on to him.

MaxDo you remember... I'll tell you what Tucker Carlson reminds me of. Did you guys both see Icarus, the film about the Russian doping scandal?

AlexThe movie I keep asking if you've seen.

MaxYeah, yeah. Okay, so do you remember there's a scene where the guy from Icarus, the coach who comes to America, the Russians find out that he's going to leak, and then the Russian state media goes nuts on him. And they're like, look at this guy. He got arrested once, and they're making fun of him. And you see the footage of these anchors, and it has all the trappings of a news set. They're like, you know, a man and a woman in like suits and they're on this fancy background. But they're just like laughing at this guy and making personal attacks on him. And you're like, this is fucking state propaganda. This is fucking wild. Right.

Like they're just defending this egregious crime by the Kremlin. And they're laughing at this guy and ruining his reputation. That's Tucker Carlson to me. It's like there's it's like worse than Hannity because Hannity, at least you believe that he has a tiny brain and he's angry and maybe some sort of pituitary issue. And he's enraged.

Alexyeah oh i i wonder what he what do you think he does for fun hannity yeah i just he probably golfs and shoots like every like all of these i know but he but you said it's like it's like tiny brain and i think he really he really believes it and i i don't know like i wonder

Merlinlike glenn beck is clearly clearly he seems like a sports fan i mean he seems like somebody who's like gonna love the yankees no matter what if you look at him as a sports fan he makes a lot more no I mean I'm not trying to be glib it's just that he's really excited because he gets to meet Derek Jeter or whatever and like that's that's his deal his deal is he's the Yankees guy so anyway we should close the bug on Carter I can wall he sent an email to Ben Shapiro the bench Shapiro put on Twitter where Kurt I can wall presents all of this oppo Intel about how he's

had his friend the psychiatrist analyze one of the Parkland kids from a distance and decides that he is dangerous. And then...

MaxWhy? I didn't follow that too closely because the Ben Shapiro thing was... I hate when Ben Shapiro gets to own someone like that. He doesn't deserve it. Ben Shapiro, he's such a fucking sophist. I can't stand that guy. God. I mean, this is a real murderer's row. He's not Jordan Peterson.

I feel like we're barreling towards reading that Jordan Peterson book for a challenge.

AlexYou made me read Art of the Deal. That's a book I own now. Oh, God.

MaxBut why was he obsessed with the, why is he feuding with the child from Parkland who was, who was, whose friends were killed? Do you, do you understand? I do know that part of the story.

MerlinI just sent you the, no, I don't, I don't precisely know why, but then the funny thing was, who was it put up those screenshots were inside of a day. There's so many levels of funny to this. This woman, what is her name? I sent you this and then you sent me the samurai thing. Let me find it. This woman.

MaxWell, you know, Kurt, I believe, you know, Kurt Eichenwald is the origin of the large adult sons that we love to make fun of. No. Oh, yes. Because he used to tweet at people. He would say, if you threaten me, my large adult sons who are black belts in karate will beat you up. You are shitting me. No.

MerlinOh, well, game recognized game.

AlexI thought that was the cards against humanity. So is that where the card came from? I know this is inside baseball. Let me, yeah.

MaxHere's an actual tweet from Kurt Eichenwald to some right-wing person from 2013. He says, BTW, for anyone thinking about threatening my kids, they're big. And one is a kung fu master trained in China.

Speaker AHe sent his son to China to learn kung fu. That seems like an important note.

MerlinWhat do you want to do this summer? No, you're going to China. You're going to protect your dad.

Speaker AWow.

Alexman these uh these these feel really long when we're not when i'm not here's another here's

Maxanother one he goes this is from 2012 my son is an international gold medalist black belt and kung fu he's built like a marine he can take down an untrained guy 2x his size two out of four

Speaker Alike a 12 foot tall person

Alexis this is this just the kirk eichenwald show like i you gotta have something else right max

Maxmore than this more than this i don't know oh oh you mean more kirk eichenwald is what you want oh i did have a tweet i found a tweet that i wanted to share with you guys this is from do you guys know those like like fact accounts on on twitter where it's like off into cool facts or like, you know, I love science and it's all, it's like predominantly made up bullshit.

MerlinYes. It's like today in history pictures that are made up.

MaxYeah. This one is called, this is an account called Quite Interesting. And I just saw this and I don't know. They have, what do they have? They have a million followers or something.

Speaker AGod, this is the Snapple caps of Twitter. Jesus.

MaxYeah, it is.

Speaker AQuite interesting is that's QI.

MaxThat's the BBC show. Well, it is. Is it? Is it? It's Wikipedia. I don't. Oh. quite interesting facts from the team behind the bbc tv show qi oh maybe this is real podcast every week i don't know maybe this is real well okay tell me what it is here was a tweet from from that they made um in late march that i just wanted to share this with knowledge with you guys it just says fighter pilots in stressful situations release such large amounts of hormones that they may ejaculate huh right in their little suit i feel like one day we'll be doing this podcast

and we'll you know one of us will really pop pop off on one of those patented rants i saw let me see i have another one um i saw something amazing bronica and i went to brunch a couple weekends ago and uh we went to this sort of um a very trendy a brunch place like a small kind of a cafe setting and we got there pretty early so we kind of beat the brunch crowd we got

there like you know 8 39 something like that but over the course of our meal it really started filling up like there were people waiting outside and it really started getting quite busy and um we were at a table for two but um um sort of right right kitty cornered us there was like a table for four and there were two there was these two couples a man you know two guy and girl and both couple and then they each had a baby and they were like doing a brunch with their kids and they were sort of i would say like they were lingering and they were like feeding feeding like

one little spoonful of food to their baby at a time they're having their coffee and talking and this crowd was like waiting like like try trying to like get in and there were these like these sort of like hipster these youngish hipster guys who were all congregated in the corner like waiting for a table and they were like they were like dirty hipsters they weren't like they weren't like they weren't like clean hipsters they were like they all had like they were there was like a just a dirtiness to like a grittiness to them and one of them one of these hipsters walked up to the

table that of the two couples with the babies and said excuse me could we have your table we're waiting for brunch are you guys are you guys almost done i've never i've never actually seen that happen in my life outside of the seinfeld episode where they're in the chinese

Alexrestaurant oh my god that's i got mixed feelings about that i kind of respect it but oh no no no no no is this like a fancy brunch place where you wait a long time to get your food anyway so no it's

Maxa it's uh it's cafe marie jean i don't know okay well but it's kind of expected that you don't linger too long but it's you've waited outside it is it is rude it would be it would be rude to sit there for an hour while everyone was waiting and not eat or drink anything, for sure.

AlexWhat if the baby was epileptic?

MaxOh, you didn't think about that. They're going to get subpoenaed.

AlexYeah. Milkshake duck.

MerlinNobody likes an epileptic baby.

Don't use this one for it.

MerlinNo, no.

MaxWait, what was the one you were looking at for me? Oh, did you find Splatter?

MerlinI still haven't found the Splatter. It's in the Dude Wipes. It's in regard to Dude Wipes, but it's from a very early episode. I thought it was in the Amazon Challenge, but I haven't found a good Splatter for you. Splatter?

Speaker ABut it's like Splatter. It's like it's exasperated. Like you're turning it over in your mind. and you're like, it's just splatter.

MerlinNow I want to hear it because it was such a throwaway.

MaxNow I want to hear it because you fixated on it. I'm fixated on it. Max. Max. What?

MerlinYou done goofed. You fucker. What? You piece of shit. What? You bad human being. What did I do? You cut the cord on me. Hot one? You got me hooked. Your first one's free. You got me hooked on your goddamn U.S. politics list, which I agree with now.

AlexDon't!

MerlinI've been reading your goddamn U.S. politics. At some point, no, I got a better one now. You can go to the 2018 list. It's not as good. It wasn't as good. I kept reading the U.S. politics list. And then, the total capriciousness, I laid down for a nap on the afternoon of April 3rd, and when I woke up, it was gone. You deleted your U.S. politics list, and I wanted to talk about that.

MaxMerlin, how do you really feel about it?

MerlinOh, Jesus Christ. This is not okay, Max. What is happening?

MaxOkay, well, let me just say, like, so I made the 2016 list as part of my process of following. It was sort of a professional obligation, and I made it as part of my process of following the news during the Clinton campaign in 2016.

MerlinAnd didn't you sort of make pains to try and get multiple kinds of voices on there?

MaxWell, no not out of any respect for hearing What's going on the crazy right as well, right? That was it was I just all I needed was I just needed to know at in any moment like if so if something happened if there was some sort of it was very hard in that campaign to know what was important and what wasn't and You know now I actually recognize looking back on it part of the reason that everyone's instincts were so fried and it was so erratic and weird was you did have the influence of all of these Russian bot accounts that were just putting their finger on the scale a little bit on these social media algorithms so that

certain news stories got trended and other ones did not.

MerlinRight. So even if people weren't, the thing is they added enough Tinder to this fraught situation that then real people would run with it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Even if you weren't, you were still being affected by bots, even if you weren't thinking that you were being, like your thoughts were being affected by what felt like a groundswell of support from this side. And then that became real people thinking that.

MaxThat's exactly it. So I feel that I have good instincts in terms of I can wake up every morning and I look at the news and I can point to the stories and be like, okay, I need to care about that. Don't need to care about that. This will be in the news cycle. Newspapers are going to run with that. This will need a response to, you know, you get, it's like triage, right? It's like, okay, yellow tag, green tag, red tag, go to the morgue. You know, you wake up, you look at the news, you make your calls. And, you know, at this point I've been doing it for enough years that I have not the best in the business, but I have some instinct, right?

Like, you know, I guess like this is how sports people feel, right, about like you make your bracket for the NAACP and you think that you have pretty good instincts about it. And then all of a sudden like Loyola is in there and you're like, well, I didn't have that on my bracket. So that's how the election was. And it's because a lot of the news, a lot of the way that news gets picked now is either that it becomes a Twitter moment or people see it because it's trending. And it can trend because bot networks are putting their finger on the scale. Or the other thing is idiot newsrooms.

The editors sit around and they go, what is being shared on social media? We'll write about that. So they're chasing, they're running behind the crowd going, everyone follow me. You know, so that's what was throwing it off in retrospect. But anyway, I made this Twitter list as an attempt to be like, I just want the fire hose. Like, I just need to know what what people are saying. So I put on every reporter who is embedded with either campaign, including a bunch of fucking num nuts who got stuck riding the bus for the Clinton campaign, who do not have.

They're not smart. They don't have any insight. They're not good writers. They're not people who I care about what they think. I just needed to know what their take was to help calibrate my math of like, is the story going to stick or not? Right. And then I had all these right wing people for the same reason. And then there were just a bunch of like nudniks in there who, you know, like the Kurt Eichenwald types where it's like, I just got to like know what this guy's going to. I just have to know like what what people are chattering about. And it's not that they have any value or that I care what they think or that they're relevant in any way. I just it's just calibrating like what to care about that day.

So that was the point of that list.

MerlinAnd part of it was that you could jump in at any point and see what was hot and happening at that moment.

MaxAnd I'll give you like the example that finally –

MerlinWhich is very much – there are certain people on your list. We're going to get to this. Certain people on our list who do a lot of promotion and retweeting over and over and over. Or they'll just say like here's the thing that just happened. And like 20 people will all say this is a thing that just happened. Right. So you get a sense. You get a quick sense of like, oh, this is what's happening.

Maxso okay so i made this list for myself and like i'm let me give you the the straw that broke the camel's back here of like what the reason that i deleted it was one of the accounts i had put a bunch of do you know anon you guys know like the like um what i guess it was 4chan back in the day

Merlinbut they're like the you know anonymous right i i blocked i blocked so many of your um infosec people like within the first week i just couldn't handle okay well just so much like you're the one

Alexwho is pwned you can't fight my fireball you had some slash like slash b people on there because

Maxthey fucking suck but so here was the thing was the end there's these anon news sources where these people get their news and it's a mix of conspiracy theories and and conflict news and breaking news

Merlinit's like their own version of q anon it's like their own oh here it comes this is it this is this

Maxis this is this is what we've been waiting for get ready the big drops coming i'll say during the election those anon groups were were wired into the wiki leaks and the leaks the podesta leaks and the WikiLeaks stuff way better than the mainstream news. So that's what I said of like, I put that on there just for me because I wanted to know which of these dumps that was happening left and right I needed to, was going to make the radar. And one of the little diagnostic tools was like, all right, what are the non-news sources posting about, right? Like when they went nuts on Pizzagate, I was like, okay, I got to learn what Pizzagate is now, right? Like it was a little

barometer for myself. But then what happened was because we talked about it in this podcast, a lot of people started following my political Twitter list. And I just love to-

MerlinYeah, like over a thousand, as recently as like last week, there were over a thousand people.

MaxYes. And I moved on myself, right? Like as soon as the election was over, I stopped reading it because it was absolutely intolerable. And I moved on and I made myself what I now call the 2018 politics list. And it's a different combination of people. I have Capitol Hill reporters. I have Supreme Court reporters. I have constitutional law experts. And I took out, I do not need to-

MerlinIt's definitely a lot brainier and a lot less noisy.

MaxYeah. I don't need anonymous. I don't need the alt-right. Like, I do not care what they think. I don't want to see their bad takes and opinions. I don't care about provocation. I don't care about the hot take culture because that is not outside of a campaign season. That's not how politics works. I just want the information of the day to just sort of – it's a different use case, right? So I built this new list. and then after I think it was during the YouTube shooting I got some DMs from people who were like hey I go I read your US politics list for news and my first thing was like uh-oh that's no good

and they were like you should know that you have a lot of accounts on here like mainly the sort of anonymous accounts and some of the right-wing accounts that are posting false shooters like they're saying like like my friend Anita was the YouTube shooter and I I'm pretty sure I haven't spoken to her about it but I'm pretty sure Anita was not the YouTube shooter and and it bothered me that I had created this thing hadn't occurred to me

Merlinbecause like there's so many of those people like as so one I'm sorry to interrupt you but like one thing with the Twitter list that is frustrating and I wish they would fix or change first of all you can't clone a list a long time ago I would have cloned your list and taken off all the people I know I love Malcolm dance but man that guy's getting pretty deep into conspiracy theories that I just don't need to hear about like I don't need to hear that like all the all the non people so I blocked I mean a ton of people that I would never in a million years block just so they wouldn't show up on the list I mean I don't need to know every time Josh Marshall makes a drawing like sorry you're blocked like I can't get you off the list so I haven't I hadn't occurred to me

that that's what when you think of your list now you think of that lowest common denominator like worst element of it you think of that's one reason you

Maxstopped it plus the Joshua Marshall taking every news story he reads and drawing drawing a little um oh my god who's that guy who peeks his big nose over the thing with that character I don't know no no no he's a little cartoon character from a greeting cards and he pokes his little fingers and nose come over yeah that's it it's fucking Joshua Marshall he takes every story he reads in New York Times and draws Kilroy on it with his Apple pencil and post it and he's like here's my analysis you know what I'm talking about yes no I

MerlinI do.

MaxI don't need that. So, okay.

MerlinSo anyway, it occurred to me. I guess what I'm acknowledging is as I yell at you for removing this list that I love, I'm overlooking the fact that I have been trimming the weeds super hard via blocking. And it had not occurred to me that you are still seeing a lot of those horrible people that I blocked a long time ago.

MaxRight. Well, not only me, but there's a thousand people out there who read that list and look at it.

MerlinWell, there's those people that are just, there was the one. It was a fucking, who was it? oh, it was something Newsweek saying that, according to the scanner, 37 people went to the hospital. Right. And immediately my first thought was, I bet they heard three to seven.

AlexYeah.

MerlinBut they said they said on there, 37 people went to the hospital during the YouTube shooting. And like and then everybody, of course, collapses on that. It goes, please don't report things from the scanner. That is not news reporting. The scanner is not the news. That's a that's a wildly developing situation.

MaxYeah, well, anyway, based on the YouTube shooting and the way that my people were using my list to get news about a breaking event that was a life or death situation, I felt that it was irresponsible for me to. And I said, I thought to myself, I sort of have two options here. I could go in and maintain this thing as a resource, which I don't really have the time or inclination to do. I don't want to individually evaluate. There was, what, 2,000 accounts on there. And I was like, or something. There was a lot of people. I was following a lot of people on that list because I was trying.

MerlinI think there were several hundred. There's at least like three or four hundred, I think.

MaxI was trying to get that fire hose effect, right? Where you just, you don't read the whole thing. You just look at it at a glance to see what people are saying. Maybe you don't. And, oh my God, Merlin.

MerlinBut anyway, so. I've been doing that since you gave the chat.

MaxSo what I came up with was Twitter doesn't allow you to like put a note on your list. So what I did was I made an account that was like Max's Twitter list. and I was like, hey guys, I'm not maintaining this list anymore. Here's a link to the new one. And then I unlisted everyone except for that account. So if you go look at my U.S. politics list, there's only that one tweet. And then there's a link to the new one, which is my U.S. politics 2018 list. It's a lean, mean, 65 people. This is a big part of how I personally follow the news and I stand by—

MerlinYeah, but it's really grown up and not as fun.

AlexHere's why I think.

MerlinThis is why mine will eventually overtake yours. My new one is going to leave yours in the dust. Because I'm going by who's the best at Twitter.

AlexDo you have a public one, Merlin?

MerlinYes. It's only me and my wife so far. But yeah. She's like, I'll subscribe to your list. I'm like, no, you don't have to do that. That's okay. I don't need people to follow it. This is for me. I want to follow it. I left out. So basically, am I interrupting you? Tell me if I'm interrupting you.

AlexNo, no, no. I'm excited to. Oh, here we go. 55 members.

Merlinit's growing it's growing oh so what I did was I so max I woke up from my nap and I went hang on sorry I woke up from my nap and went because my world had been torn apart you took you took my list away and it hurt my heart so I said man I'll go make my own list and I went my own list and then I went through your started with your 2018 and if there's all kinds of no-brainers that are gonna go in there like like I don't need to go into all of them but I was looking for people whose twitter presence not so much their maybe their news gathering stuff but hailey bird

she's got a high signal to noise ratio but i think she's delightful i love her love of dogs she's on the list she stays on the list baseball crank not on the list uh uh what's his name uh who's the guy eric geller and dave his name is koff they're always trolling each other about sci-fi things and it always makes my day like they're definitely on the list so i've been going by like people who i found on your list that delight me because of the way they use twitter So mine, I'm calling it political Twitter. I hate that people are going to see that I added them to a list called political Twitter because I hate when somebody adds me to a list. But there used to be a way to turn that off where you couldn't get added to a list.

But I can't figure out how to do that anymore. But anyway, so that's what I've done. I wanted something that recreated the happiest moments of me looking at that list. And, you know, minimizing the people who like the Judd Legums who like just, we talked about this before, but my dude fucking has six toots for every article he does. And it's just like that's just too much like no matter how good you are Daniel didn't make the cut. He may come back later. I

MaxJust want to mind to be fun. It's astounding to me that you somehow made a list to try to follow That involves politics and you don't have Daniel on there who's probably one of the best I learned more stuff from following him on Twitter He's one of the best aggregators and sources and analysts of on the entire Twitter ecosystem

MerlinAll right, I'll add him in.

MaxIt's just crazy. It's just crazy to me. It's like, I don't know how you're getting the news. Like, I would not understand the news as well if I did not. Oh, he's from Chicago. That's why you like him. If I didn't follow him. Chicago.

Speaker AThe way you say, pause. What?

MerlinAnyways, I have really mixed feelings about this. It's been a real rollercoaster ride for me since you introduced me to this. And you remember my resistance. I think we, you know what? I think we have a lost episode.

AlexYeah.

MerlinFrom the days before we were releasing episodes. I think one of our earliest sad episodes we didn't release because we were sad was about the politics list. And it was a terrible, terrible episode. But before we return to that many years, many months later in the Jazz Girl episode, I believe we did a challenge to follow Max's politics list. And it was a terrible episode.

AlexAnd we were just too sad. We're sad anyway. That's how bad it was.

MerlinBut you got me hooked. But, you know, I – so when you're – now when you're – so just in terms of principles, if you want to say to somebody out there, like tell our listeners how because you're a good curator of things as we've seen from your wonderful youtube list max uh if you were going to give people advice on how to start their own uh list about this kind of stuff what kind of considerations should they make yeah so okay so

Maxfirst of all i actually do think that everyone should start their own list of like news sources on twitter and just have it be different than your feed because your feed should be this is my take but i think that your feed should be like people that you know in no brands no companies it should only be individual people usually just using their own name who you know in real life and you care what they have to say and the correct number of people to follow on twitter is around two to

Merlinthree hundred that's that's your happy spot i'm at 600 now i think 100 would be perfect yeah i'm at

Maxi'm up to 800 and i need to i would love to see what it is if you include mutes it would be so funny to see if you include oh i have i have a i'm following 800 but 150 of them are muted so So anyhow, so that's how you use Twitter.

MerlinCan I make another suggestion, though, on top of that? Please. So here's a couple of things I did strategically when I did this. And I agree with you. I think people should do this. Just as an exercise, I'll make it a public challenge. This would be fun. Go make your own list, politics, whatever you want to call it, culture. Because a lot of the folks on my list are going to be real bewildered. Like when Walter Hickey, if he sees himself on there, he's going to be like, why am I on something called political Twitter? Well, he was on your list, and I came to really like him. And now I talk to him on the Internet, and he seems really cool. He likes Hawkeye. So what I would say is, first of all, there's the no-brainers. And this is not you. This is me.

So like, you know, the Maggie Habermans of this. The kinds of people that I really consider like a primary, primary source for something that I care about. The obvious ones that like Natasha Bertrand and stuff like that. People that I just really enjoy from TV and stuff. And I want to see what they have to say. Now, when you go to Maggie Haberman's Twitter, one of the sucky things about Twitter that's annoying is how they're always telling you who else you should follow. In this instance, it's very useful. So you scroll down past a couple of her toots, and then you'll see a list. And you go through there and look for people that you think might be interesting, because they're actually pretty good at this.

In that instance, they'll show you, like, especially some really good women journalists, and go and look at that and go add them. And then go look at what's recommended from them. And just doing that, you'll find 20 good people to follow. Now, here's the other thing. When you go in, you'd be surprised how many people are, guess what, already doing this. So when you go to Maggie Haberman's, you can jump in and see who she followed for the 2012 campaign. She's got a list. Like all a lot of these journalists are doing exactly the same thing that we're doing. So go and go for whoever you find very interesting.

You have a way now to go in and see who they nominally find interesting. And that's a good way to get new people.

MaxWhat I what I do. So what I would do if I was going to advise someone on how to start a Twitter, a politics list of their own to sort of follow the Trump White House is like, go ahead and find like. Maybe go on my list and find four or five people. Just scroll down and sort of pick three or four or five people who really jump out at you as interesting voices that you're getting new information from and that you find trustworthy. And start your list by just adding those three or four people. And then watch them for a couple days and look at who they retweet and look at who they talk to in their at replies.

Totally agree.

MerlinSusan Hennessey is not very high volume right now. I think she's fantastic. Follow her and watch who she retweets and you'll see what a smart person thinks is worth sharing.

MaxThat's exactly it. So like – and I also like looking at who they interact with because journalists – the phone of Twitter is – and what's useful about Twitter is not only that people post things but also that they have their at replies back and forth. and they say, I think the story, that's where you get the, that's where they get the really, that's where you get the, in some cases, the really honest and interesting commentary is people talking with each other about, oh, I don't agree with the process of this story or I think the source is bad or whatever. And you're like, then you get to be a fly on the wall and you get to be like, oh, that's interesting.

AlexPeople are going to be like, why isn't Alex saying anything? It's because I agree with all of this and it's super interesting. and I really like, now I'm making, I'm curating my science list and it's really fun to see like the philosophers and the scientists argue maybe perhaps about artificial intelligence and consciousness. And the, the Twitter app I think is a lot better than the website in terms of like follow suggestions. Like if you go to Twitter moments now and you scroll down, it's like,

here are some other engineers that you might like. And then there's a bunch of women who work at Apple that I didn't even know. And I'm like, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Man, it's weird how kind of good the Twitter app is.

MaxYeah, let me give you another piece of advice. This is like a piece of Syracuse advice. You know how Syracuse's thing is like, oh, it's so hard to meet people and meet your heroes and whatever. Like one thing that you can do to not be weird is like don't immediately start interacting with people on Twitter just because you follow them. Like just because you have a list of political Twitter people, do not start like going crazy with replies and replying to every tweet or saying LOL. Like you will mark yourself as a rube and a weirdo. You can flip the bozo bit. Because they get a lot of that. And listen, like I get a lot of that. I do not like when someone new follows me and then starts replying to every treat with like, great point, LOL.

You know, something like that. Like I don't need. You should check out my podcast. I don't need to reply about that. Like, you know what you should do is keep your powder dry. Wait for the thing where you have something special that only you can add, right? And then you're like, this is my moment. and you send your considered good one joke or comment.

AlexSomeone does not have, do not disturb on.

MaxI don't know what that is. Oh, the little wizard hat. I have to turn the wizard hat on.

MerlinGo to system preferences. This is a very good thing that I have done. Go to system preferences.

MaxI'm in.

MerlinGo to sound. Sound. And then for sound effects, turn it all the way down. Wow. You can just do that? I just learned one yesterday that's already changed my game. I learned one from Syracusa. Did you know you can have your scroll lozenge always be on?

Speaker AHuh?

MerlinNo. You know how scrolling disappears now and it's really annoying?

Speaker AYou can put the lozenge in all the time? You can have it always be on? I had no idea. I do. Listen, Mr. Syracusa.

MaxShow scroll bars always. Mr. Syracusa, I have a message for you, which is the tip that you share with Merlin where you can command click on a new window and it makes the old window go away. wait is it it's not working for me now is that it

Merlinyou option click

Maxand it makes the current window hide I use that see it's the same thing you were talking about Merlin as soon as I look at my keyboard I can't remember what it is but I have been using that like a madman it's so good it's so good how could I have been using a Mac my whole life and not knowing about this I know right

AlexMr. Syracuse I have a message for you as well I agree with your point on Instagram that you made on the most recent reconcilable differences and you're right there's nothing wrong with looking at a picture and noticing things. I don't investigate what's in a picture. I just notice. I care about people's pictures and I look at them.

MerlinExcuse me. Mr. Syracuse, Alex is full of shit. Did you see that exchange I sent you?

AlexI did not. I did not.

MerlinThe Ben Shapiro?

AlexPeople are seeing the backstage stuff.

MerlinThe latest thing, Eric Geller, David Itzkov.

AlexNo, no, no.

MerlinClick that.

AlexI'm opening.

MerlinIt's such a great, their relationship on Twitter is so hilarious to watch. Because Eric Geller is such a balls out, unapologetic, like Star Wars nerd, and Dave just needles him constantly, and it's so fucking funny. Oh, this is... Do you think this respects the legacy of your beloved J.K. Tolkien novels?

Speaker AThat's a funny joke. This is cute. And then Merlin jumped in.

MaxMerlin, this is...

Speaker AMerlin did the exact thing that we said.

MaxNo, no, no. On the contrary, Merlin jumped in right at the right moment. He jumped in right at the right moment to say that he saw and appreciated it in a way that was funny and understated.

AlexAll right.

MaxThe not you can't make don't make it about you. It doesn't right right right. Yes You know what would have been the wrong way to do it is to is to overdo it and be like epic win This is this is huge or Or to be like when you meet on the street when you meet on the street I'll also be there and I'll also have words for you, right?

Speaker AThat's no moon

AlexMerle, my hat! We're done, we're done. You guys, don't put hat on the hat.

MaxThat's no moon

Speaker AYou should be paying 10 bucks

AlexI'm perfectly not laughing This is like a violation Of my mouth noises A violation of your mouth noises

MerlinWhat'd that mean?

AlexI don't know He's co-opting it's cultural I hate this challenge

Speaker AI hate it so much

MaxAlex did you want to keep discussing the Twitter list Alex? I want to circle back here

Merlinokay mini challenge mini challenge do you guys have Gmail available? yeah open up Gmail

Maxmini challenge mini challenge

Speaker AAlex

Maxdo you want to do a mini challenge?

AlexYes, yes, yes. Let's do research. Yes, yes, yes.

MerlinMini challenge. Okay, Yanji. I don't even know what's recorded and what's live anymore. I'm so confused. So, go to Gmail. Yes.

Speaker AWhat's happening? What the fuck is happening? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Am I hacked?

MerlinCan I still have a handjob?

Speaker AOh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

MerlinI need a new Scoot Scoot.

Speaker AI need a new Scoot Scoot. I love a dump dump. Oh my god. I love you, daddy.

MaxMerlin, what kind of insights are you going to share with the political Twitter list today?

MerlinThey want to ruin Robert Mueller to blast their pussy.

Speaker AThat's cultural appropriation.

MaxThanks, Mr. Temkin. Oh, you're welcome, Alex. Thanks, Mr. Temkin. Oh, thank you. You don't have to keep thanking me. That's okay. Thanks, Mr. Temkin. Why are they so loud?

Speaker AI don't know. I don't know.

Maxhere maybe this will do thanks Mr. Temkin you're welcome Alex I turned it down thanks Mr. Temkin I know we're all grateful for my contributions thanks Mr. Temkin

Speaker Aalright it's too far now

Maxthanks Mr. Temkin now I'm going to subpoena Twitter now this is cyber stalking and I'm going to subpoena Twitter to get you back

Speaker AI hate this challenge I hate it so much

MaxI want to circle back here Okay, good point, Alex. Let's go back to Gmail, Merlin. Go to the search area.

Speaker AYes.

MerlinSearch area. Yes. Type Tumblr, the name of the site. Space. Tumblr space Russian. Oh, I got this. Okay, I want to know how. Now here's the challenge. Do it. Challenge.

Speaker AHow many Russian bot accounts did you accidentally interact with?

AlexLet's see.

MerlinThree, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

AlexOh, I might win this one. How many did you have, Alex? But I don't understand what this means, like, interacted with.

MerlinLike you retweeted something from one of these accounts.

AlexOh, there's a lot. Hold on. Let me number these. 21. Whoa. What was your max?

MaxI had two.

AlexI got nine.

MaxSo I don't recognize these accounts. I don't either.

MerlinSo I went and looked at the two accounts that I interacted with. Do you recognize the previously known as's? No. Oh, wow. You got Swag in the Rain, previously known as Black Lives Matter USA. You got Carton S. Creel, previously known as Feel My Dragon Balls.

AlexOh, I got the Black Lives Matter USA too.

MaxI think a lot of these were posting lefty stuff that probably what happened was I saw it in my dashboard and I faved. Because that's what you do on Tumblr is you just scroll down. And you're like, fave, fave, fave.

MerlinYou smash on that heart, fam. Yeah.

MaxIt's, you know, it's like, it's not public, like on Twitter, I don't think. So I just fave everything. And I'm sure I saw some sort of, it's public?

MerlinYeah, you're favoriting on Maine.

AlexYeah, mine just, I've got Poe Dameron. I've got Maddie. I've got some cow cartoons. Wait, Maddie was a Russian bot? Oh, my God. No, I'm saying, that would be great. Is that intersectional, Alex?

MerlinShe's a robot now? I'm very confused because I don't know if it's appropriate for me. They're a robot now?

MaxI'm so confused. You've got a new confusion in my understanding of your relationship every week and a half. I don't know if I'm allowed to be mad at the Russian bots anymore. I know. I know. Like, if the Russian bots come out as trans, are we going to be able to be mad at them anymore? Because that would be really problematic.

MerlinYou were interacting with Dragon Ball Z, and that was actually a Russian bot? I don't do anything with no Russians.

AlexWhat I like at the bottom of this email is you aren't in trouble. You are in trouble. And don't need to take any action if you don't want to.

MaxTrouble is a fake idea. That's a really good challenge. It's pots.

AlexWhat?

MaxI'm just, what? I've lost my mind. Don't worry about it.

AlexOh, boy. This comes up a lot, but I can't believe I did homework in school. I can't believe how many rules I followed. I'm just, I can't believe how much I studied for the ACT. Like, I.

MerlinWhat'd you get?

Max45 degrees. I had a 26. History.

AlexI only got a 30, and I'm still mad about it.

MerlinOh, my God. I had a 26.

MaxLet no man put us under what I believe is the proper attire for football.

AlexHere's the thing, though, Merlin. The first time I got a 29, and then I took it again because I was so embarrassed. I went to a very smart high school.

MaxI went to a state school. No one should be a cock to a stranger, ever.

AlexWhat is

MaxWhat's Matt's reading from Is this the after show

AlexWhat's happening We should really do A real live show

MaxYou guys This is just my It's like the funniest thing That's ever been written

AlexI see It's an AQWD AQWD

MaxYou guys AQWD readers at all

Speaker AI used to be on the live journal All the time Are there bees in here

MerlinWhat's happening? What the fuck is happening?

MaxThis is very upsetting.

Speaker AOh no, my rocks!

MaxOh my god. Oh yeah, that was the only one I did for myself.

Speaker AOh no, my rocks! Oh no, my rocks! Oh, that's not the end of the show! Oh, do it again! Oh no, oh no, my rocks! I wanna circle back here. Oh no, my rocks! Oh my god! I love you, daddy. I need a new scoot scoot Look how big the racket is Look how big it is

MaxI love drunk Merlin Drunk Merlin, this was making me laugh I can't even tell you how much this was making me laugh You just slow someone down to 50% And they sound so drunk

MerlinThis is fucking bullshit This is bullshit This is such bullshit

Speaker ALook how big the racket is Look how big it is

Oh!

72. You Aren't in Trouble

Show notes

Transcript

72. You Aren't in Trouble

Show notes

Transcript

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